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It's a bit slower, but it's quite some development Don't wanna rush it and pack stuff too much together.

Chapter XXVI: Healing and growth, part 3

And so Addie told her friends about what she’d been through and what new plasmids and gene tonics she had received. The power she’d spliced into her genetic code, making her near invincible on the battlefield against the Ryanists. Now however, she was assigned to protect the delegates of Atlas his joined rebel forces while keeping an eye on the treacherous followers of Ryan. She only realized she had been transferred to the area her friends where fighting at when she arrived. She’d shed a tear or two when she was reunited With Sandy, Darren, Wyatt and the others. She noticed how much they’d all changed in just a few weeks: Ernie had grown buff, Buck was starting to rival Wyatt’s sharp mind and Sandy had deep lines drawn in her face. Claire tried to avoid Addies gaze. Now that she has grown that much more dangerous, Addie could instill fear in Claire just by existing. Claire quietly hid herself behind Eddie who was moving his nostrils and looking around for something.

“Now it’s time we show you something, but it’s very important nobody follows us,” Sandy said to Addie. She nodded.

Splitting into a few distinct groups, Sandy, Addie and the others took long winded paths to eventually end up at the basement. Sandy, Darren and Wyatt knew they could trust her with this. They descended down the stairs as Ernie and Buck made sure nobody saw all of them enter. Then Darren opened his bag.

“Will we go out to find some angels too, B?” the girl said as her two glowing eyes peaked out, curious.

Adelaide was slightly taken aback as she visibly distanced herself from the bag with its inhuman content.

“How the hell did you get that thing? Why isn’t it screaming for its… protector?” Adelaide said.

“You can thank Darren for that,” Sandy said with a smile and nodded with her head over to her stepbrother.

“Impressive like always, Darren. You’ve done a great deal to protect them,” Addie said and formed a tiny smile as her lips curled in between the blinks of an eye.

“I do what I can,” Darren replied.

And so they told her what they had been doing all this time, quite clearly contradicting what they had said before in public about their ‘Big Daddy raids’. But they had been sucking dry corpses and improving themselves. Addie no longer had the moral high ground. They were all splicers now. They were all more than human and also something less than human.

Something… different.

They had to disperse again in order to avoid attracting attention. Using Scout, a plasmid that worked as a kind of conscious running ahead without being seen or heard but hearing and seeing itself, Sally had heard local buzz about them supposedly being involved in a conspiracy to overthrow both Atlas and Ryan and taking Rapture for themselves. Some even linked them to Sofia Lamb or Father Wales. Apparently the latter was still alive after Addie tried to shoot him in the face.

Everyone knew something was looming above them and it wasn’t rain. Maybe it was the conspiracy, maybe the Ryanists were planning something or maybe it was something vastly different. The truce meetings made everyone feel uneasy. Tomorrow they would begin and for the first time since the beginning of the civil war, as the papers called it now, the fighting had ended. A fragile armistice had been called into being. Anyone breaking it was to be shot on sight.

One by one, Sandy and the others slipped out of the basement with Darren tucking away the Little Sister back into suboptimal oxygenated conditions, in the stuffy bag. As Addie prepared to go up, Wyatt stopped her.

“Could I borrow your revolver? I’d like to make some adjustments to it for you,” Wyatt said.

“Eh sure Why-why,” Addie said and handed over her trusted revolver, which she still consider to be an old friend she was leaving in someone else’s care.

“I’ll take good care of it,” Wyatt said as he returned to his work on the turrets and bots he’d been modifying.

Eddie looked around at the people that were just standing around now they couldn’t rip the guts out of trespassing Ryanists and there was nothing left to burn or electrocute. They were bored and yet they were not alone. Some of them were growing closer to each other, even though they came from different parts of Rapture and different kinds of people. He’d always been too tough to really show it, but inside Eddie felt a bit weaker at times. Every time Claire cringed at the sight of peril.

Since they took her away from Fort Frolic, kidnapped her off stage as she’d called it, she hadn’t let anyone come near her, especially not Eddie who’d picked her up ignoring anything she might’ve said. Now he knew she was hurt inside at the time, both mentally and physically. What Cohen did to her through his disciple was unforgivable and Eddie wished he could’ve killed both of them. His previous male ‘star’ had undoubtedly disappeared by force. The whole thing disgusted him more than he thought it would. But it made him shiver all over every time he thought about it. In all these weeks, Claire hadn’t once changed her clothes and she was still moving around barefoot and in the formerly pristine white dress, tainted by dark red blood. As he had watched Adelaide passing, he’d noticed Claire hiding behind him, but she’d backed away when he’d tried to comfort her. But now, he suddenly felt the warmth and comfort of her embrace. Tucking her head against his shirt, she said: “Promise you will protect me against Finn, against all of them.”

“I…I promise,” Eddie said.

Then either of them didn’t say anything for a while and just stood there silently.

Darren and Sandy were walking along the borders of the streets that the rebels of Atlas controlled, that they had helped conquer.

“We’ve come a long way haven’t we?” Sandy said. Darren nodded.

They walked a bit further while Sandy tried to put together what she wanted to say and what she was thinking at the moment. Then she said: “Here, this is for you.” She handed Darren a worn piece of paper before continuing, “it was in the archives and I thought you might like it. I asked Wyatt to find it. Go on, take a look.”

Darren looked to Sandy as her cheeks mildly blushed and then studied the paper, all wrinkled and torn. It said something about a girl that supposedly died about a year ago. She had wavy shiny midnight black hair like Sandy’s and delightful green eyes and said to be about ten years old when she passed away. Her name was Lilly Bradford. She was their Little Sister, now eleven years old.

“I figured we could call her that, Lilly, instead of well… ehm…” Sandy said as she didn’t really want to say ‘thing’ to Darren. He seemed to like the little tyke well Lilly as much as he liked Sandy.

“Yes, thank you,” Darren said as he put her arms around Sandy and held her in a tight embrace.

Ernie and Buck were all alone at the ADAM filtering house. Ernie Donner had been thinking about a lot of things a lot lately, but whether it was the civil war escalating, the truce meetings being tomorrow or his bigger muscles making him rely more on them than on his slightly above average mind, with Buck filling in the gaps… Whether it was any of those, things had become a lot clearer.

When he saw a girl the other day, she smiled at him, yet he didn’t smile back. It wasn’t that she was ugly or anything or that he was in a foul mood with all the things he and the others had gone through, but he just wasn’t interested in her at all. He could see she knew and that he hurt her, but he couldn’t bring himself to return her feelings. All those months ago, when he’d lived and worked at Fontaine Futuristics, he’d been good friends with a man called Arthur Portley. He had blond, curly hair and deep brown eyes and the kindest heart. He thought he had forgotten about him. Today, he couldn’t stop thinking about him.

Cautiously so nobody could hear him, Ernie said to Buck: “I think… I think I might like men.”

Completed:

CHA-05: Teenage robot with organic skin starting war of sabotage and love.

Adelaide was breathing in the soothing air wafting through Talos Trappings this afternoon. Maybe the oxygen supply was lessening and she was getting delusional and soon unconscious, but she felt almost happy. Whatever would happen tomorrow, she now had a purpose. She had power. She was with her friends and she would make sure nothing happened to them whatever it took. She had everything and she felt good. Someone had hacked the intercom, Why-why without a doubt, and it was now playing Sandy’s favorite song. Addie remembered her listening to it in silence, eyes closed and just swaying from one side to the other as the soothing sound echoed through the neighbourhood. All those years ago. And now it had returned.

We'll meet beyond the shore
we'll kiss just as before
Happy we'll be beyond the sea
and never again I'll go sailin'

I know beyond a doubt
my heart will lead me there soon

Wyatt… did he still have that crush on Sandy? That everybody knew he had except Sandy? Darren knew… and he was more straightforward with his affections for her, at least as a brother. But Addie knew that look he had now. It was the same as Why-why’s… and hers when she looked in the mirror. That ship seemed to have sailed a long time ago.

As she stumbled along the avenue pondering how far that metaphorical ship had gone now, somebody called for her. She didn’t immediately respond so it was only after someone put his hand on her shoulder that she instinctively reacted with a plasmid aimed at the floor. A tenth of second afterwards a jet stream of water spouted upwards and tossed her attacker into the air before he landed on the ground. It was Heavy.

He gagged a few times before he spat out some water and blood and staggered to stand up again. He looked at Addie, seemingly not mad at all about the accidental plasmid shove and reached out his hand. Addie struggled for a second to get what he wanted, before she handed over a first aid kit for his collapsed lung. She didn’t want to nearly kill him again, did she? That’s what she expected he’d say, but instead he said: “Thanks.”

“Sorry for that bullet, I…” Adelaide said, bringing up the embarrassment Heavy was trying to avoid.

“We all are trying to protect the ones we love. Sometimes we succeed and sometimes… we fail,” Heavy said.

The big man went to sit down on a bench as he stroke his beard and his blue eyes glistened in the evening lights. He was thinking of something he hadn’t thought about for a long while, for months he had repressed it. Something Addie missed and so could never miss it when it was gone and taken from her. Something more profound.

“I don’t know who made our clothes,” Adelaide said.

Heavy looked up and narrowed his eyes as his memories grew brighter and brighter in the back of his mind. He remembered what he’d said to her and her friends when they first met. He’d told them about his wife.

“Do you want me to tell you about her, a little seamstress in Rapture, daughter of a wealthy textile mogul?” Heavy said.

“Yes, please,” Addie said.

Heavy nodded and gestured for her to come sit with him as he told the story of his wife, his wonderful wife. She had spirit, he’d always loved that she had spirit more than a bottle of scotch. Out of all the men in Rapture, all the entrepreneurs, she picked him. Her father disowned her and she was even happier. As a seamstress she didn’t make much. She made excellent work but Ryan didn’t pay her as much as he should. With her braid hanging over her shoulder, she worked day and night in her little shop and greeted everyone who came by, even the man that came to pick up the clothes she made and tossed a dime or two on her dresser for the effort. She even greeted Ryan, who didn’t look at her once or greeted her back. Who was she anyway? She never said she was the wife of John Mackey, just the sweet and kind seamstress Ellie Mackey, the only thing she wanted to change. Her last name. She was determined to bring in her share and be dependent of no one’s fame or money. But she did love him with all her heart, almost as much as he loved her. But it wasn’t enough. One day she went to Ryan’s office and asked to be paid more for her hard work and the nice clothes she consistently made. It only got ugly when she lost her temper and showed just how much spirit a young woman could have. Under the guise of her being a threat to the Great Chain and Rapture with its free market and everyone earning the sweat of their brow, with her demanding ‘her share’, Ryan sentenced her to death. John Mackey, or Heavy in other words, spoke her once and pleaded for her to apologize, for him. She wouldn’t listen. That’s when he started hating Ryan. It increased more and more as he met others that Ryan had shown his true face to: that of a tyrant. Either you enjoyed his privileges which suited your eternal, accustomed lifestyle as the rich, or you didn’t and wanted him dead. No in-betweens. Except maybe Addie and her group. Heavy recognized a bit of Ellie in Addie with her long brown locks he was now holding between his fingers. She didn’t pull them away.

“We both lost our chance at love and we’ll never get it back,” Addie said.

“Let’s accept our faith and presumably our untimely end and choose something more fleeting instead,” Heavy said. They then went into the ally and closed themselves off from the world for a few fleeting moments.

Sally heard a lot of noise as she came down the stairs into the abandoned basement as Wyatt was busily working on something.

“Wyatt?” she said.

“Just a few minutes, I’m working on my latest breakthrough. Could you hand me that wire over there?” Wyatt said.

Sally nodded even though Wyatt wasn’t even looking at her and handed over the wire. The scatterbrained engineer completely forgot again that she was there and continued his work with him now working in the crucial wire. Sally probably called him a couple of more times, because the seemingly first time he heard it she was almost yelling, though he still was slow to respond. Sally didn’t know what to do, how could she get his attention to explain to him that she… Suddenly, she zapped him, making him jolt upright and turn around as his own electrobolt cells tried to absorb and tone down the dangerous voltage.

“What the hell, why did you zap me?” he uttered before stopping as he’d seen the tender look on Sally’s face. “I… I’m sorry. You have the parts I need, err, I mean I’m all yours, what can I do for you?”

“I just needed to tell you that, I always felt there was a spark between us,” she said before kissing him on the cheek, blushing her own cheeks into the brightest red and running back up the stairs out of the basement. Wyatt stood dumbstruck.

Silently Darren and Sandy had walked back to the sleeping arrangements directions Heavy had given them for the night. They came to the door as little Lilly had started yawning, just a bit too loud so Darren had to shush here without anyone catching on, while Sandy pretended she was the one that yawned like an eleven year old girl. Sometimes she did. They hadn’t said anything else to each other on the way over here and the leaflet with Lilly’s background had been a small gesture and yet as Darren looked up to Sandy, they both knew something had changed. As if they were hypnotized and in being tricked they realized how much they cared for each other, always had. Everybody else had always come second, including themselves. They’d always been afraid to outright show it as they knew each other since they were children. But they loved each other as something else than just stepbrother and sister. After dropping off Lilly at the basement where Wyatt was working as always, they held each other in a tight embrace once more and turned their gaze onto the other. Both of their blue eyes shimmered in the flickering light of the lamp as they leaned in closer and their lips merged into one enduring kiss.

“I will always protect you,” he said. And he would.

As they fell on the bed, they only felt comfort in each other’s arms. After months of slaughtering fellow humans, they now created life.

Last edited by Scriptor Scorpio; 31st October 2012 at 12:32 PM.

Completed:

CHA-05: Teenage robot with organic skin starting war of sabotage and love.

“Excellent. Make all the necessary preparations. This war shall end through love and loyalty, one way or another,” Ryan said. “The city of Rapture will be on the rise once more.”

It was the next morning. There was a different scent in the air today, but it was almost as pleasant as the one that had been lingering in the streets up till last night. The people of Rapture awoke, both the rebels of Atlas and the supporters of Ryan. And Sandy’s group.

Ernie and Buck were quietly working on their research. The former’s revelation had surprised Buck a bit, but he accepted it as a part of a friend he’d grown close with since they accidentally took each other’s gene tonic.

“I remember we did experiments with polyps to do a number of things. We found we needed the plasmid wielder to generate living things, parasites or other organic forms of life to do certain biological things, among other specifications the market was begging for,” Ernie said. “In plain English, photo-electric insects contained in a polyp that burst open when it hit a living target, to command security to a threat by nesting on them, a new type of insect that grew from your arm and attacked in a vicious swarm, like the one you and Sally have and a polyp of sorts that enraged a target enough to turn on his allies. But also, there was a hypnotize polyp like the plasmid Darren has equipped. Dr. Suchong was busy developing these further when he… got drilled to the table by a Big Daddy, ironically the first one to react to the doctor’s shoving of its Little Sister. Dr. Alexander took over after that.”

“And this sample could have come from a polyp line? You recognize the doctor’s signature?” Buck asked.

“No doubt about it,” Ernie said. “But we’ll have to study it more to figure out its function. Perhaps we can even make our own plasmids and gene tonics when we do. With your mind and my knowledge.”

“That’s… interesting,” Buck said.

Wyatt had been working all night on his turrets, improving them every hour or so. He hadn’t been paying much attention to anything around him, until he heard something ruffling. He turned around to see the bag Darren had been keeping that thing in, ‘Lily’ as he had discovered for Sandy through various and illegal hacking methods. He tried to turn his attention back to his work when he heard it humming some eerie tune. Then ‘it’ laughed childishly and said: “You always save me from the monsters, daddy.”

Wyatt muttered something before getting back to his inventions. Once again he whispered it to himself: “Not all monsters.”

Ever so gently, as she didn’t know any other way, Sandy awoke to the morning light of Talos Trappings. She knew it wasn’t natural or that it was even morning, but she was used to it and she loved how it lit up her face just before she smiled feeling the warmth tickle her cheeks, even as a grown woman.

She turned to see Darren greeting her smile with one if his own and it made her smile even wider, as she knew how rare his were. She covered her face with a pillow a bit embarrassed she couldn’t stop smiling before she asked:

“Do you remember when you went away for a while with Dad to a whole other part of Rapture and Mom and I really missed you? I know how glad I was to see you again. It felt like a year, but it couldn’t have been, right?”

Darren turned away and started putting on his shoes and buttoning his shirt. As he stood up and he turned his head, Sandy saw his smile had disappeared.

“I don’t want to talk about that,” he said as he tried to leave.

Sandy grabbed his arm and he looked at her as she pulled him towards her. Her arm wasn’t as pristine white as it was before. The ice crystals had begun to spike, the electricity jolted from one end to the other and her skin had an eerie red glow. She refused to use more ADAM then would normally be her share. He’d make sure she remained the sparkling beautiful woman she’d always been.

“I’m sorry I’ll drop it, please stay,” she said as she pressed her lips against his.

Then they got dressed for the truce meetings. Finally, this war would end.

Every single unit in Talos Trappings and the surrounding areas had gathered on the side of the district controlled by Atlas’ rebels. On the other side, all the Ryanists gathered as well as they dropped of all their weapons at stashes hidden deep in their half of the district. But plasmids couldn’t be taken away. Every eye a splicer possessed remained weary and hostile at the sight of any burn flaking arm or jolts of electricity running across someone’s forearm from the elbow. It had been requested by both parties that they set up the stands on an open space where everyone would be equally as vulnerable to crossbow shooters and more. If one of them went down and the truce meetings came to an abrupt end with the ensuing bloodshed, as much blood of Atlas’ rebels would be spilled as would that of the Ryanists, if they could still bleed. Set in up half circles the strongest supporters of each side sat on hastily made wooden chairs on platforms and were lined off from the other side and the filthy plaza with bags of sand, as they surrounded the marvelously made engineer chairs with the greatest comfort in which the leaders and the debaters would be seated. The others, like most of Sandy and her group, stood behind the elevated rows of chairs while keeping a safe distance from the forsworn enemies who would most probably break the truce any second now.

Heavy was acting on Atlas’ behalf just in case some vile Ryanist got it in his head to end the rebellion once and for all by killing the working class hero himself. Still as Heavy was quite high-ranked, he was heavily guarded by the strongest splicers, including Adelaide. They exchanged looks briefly before turning both their attention to the red-headed woman that walked through the door.

She was quite beautiful with her long flowing green dress and wavy crimson red hair sleeked besides her cheeks. That what was you saw at first glance, apart from the scar that ran from her widow’s peak through her eyebrows over her nose and to her jaw. She’d been from a rich family before all of this happened, but she’d been hardened by the war and taken charge so it seemed. She seemed quite spliced up in some places too, almost as if it was done at strategical places.

She took her seat across from Heavy and said:

“Let us begin, John.”

Heavy seemed just a bit uncomfortable before he said:

“Good. We’ll start right away Clarice Carisse.”

The negotiations about the things that needed to change were long and tedious. Usually the most prominent members of every side spoke up almost every few minutes at the outrageous claims and demands the other side laid in front of them, but both Heavy and the red-headed woman named Clarice calmed their supporters and continued to debate in an almost civil way about very uncivil topics. What about the labor laws, the housing, moral standards, religious views… and then came the free market. And the crowd roared.

Completed:

CHA-05: Teenage robot with organic skin starting war of sabotage and love.

My apologies for the longer wait, I had a lot of work and was tired. Now enough excuses... it's time for the final act.

Chapter XXIX: Stealing votes… or the fall of Rapture

“Do whatever is necessary. The Great Chain shall be rattled until every weak link is replaced,” Ryan said to Dr. Alexander for perhaps the final time. “This ends here.”

Heavy and Clarice tried to demand order on the plaza, but it had no use, as the people had raised their voice until they were shouting every single word they spoke and tried to exceed the volume of the unparticular person at the other side they tried to outdo. Some made death threats repeatedly and over and over again with seemingly no end to all who called himself a bit of a Ryanist, while another answered the threats with solemn vows they would burn every rebel alive. Lines were crossed that hadn’t been crossed since the last great war that brought all of the former citizens of Rapture to it. They were still fighting with words and threatening gestures, but as more metaphorical oil was added to the inferno the truce meetings had become at the sound of the word ‘free market’, the shouting wouldn’t last long. Most people who had Incinerate! had burned through their seats or the barricades, those with Winter Blast dropped the temperature around them with 3 degrees as their hearts grew cold, others with Electro Bolt charged to strike their randomly chosen opponent’s heart to stop it and tear their lungs apart. In their blind fury they could only vaguely remember why they were here in the first place with those rats or those fascists and they had just enough sanity left that they demanded their leaders to give them the keys to the weapon vaults so they could satisfy their bloodlust; which with some was an actual gene tonic.

“Enough!” Heavy yelled as he threw a sonic boom with his arm to silence the rebels on his side. It would be the last straw if he’d done the same with the Ryanists and so Clarice followed his example by releasing a swarm of insects that ate away at her supporters until they settled down and she called them back.

“We shall discuss ‘it’ as civilized people because we still are civil and not savage beasts like those waiting outside our doors,” Heavy said.

“We ask our supporters for complete and utter silence and respect as we try to find a solution, lest innocent people die. Is that understood?” Clarice said and even Atlas’ rebels nodded.

“Now, the first note Heavy has asked me to bring up, is Fontaine Futuristics and its ownage. You got something to say Sanford?” Clarice said as she looked to an overweight business man with a large mustache who tried his dearest to subtly show he was vehemently opposed to the idea.

“No, ma’am,” Sanford said.

“Good, let us continue,” Clarice said.

And so, the negotations that were originally truce meetings continued in peace. Everytime Clarice said something not even Heavy could find himself in, he had to control his supporters first so they wouldn’t go breaking the truce out of boredom when he was left to privately negotiate. He didn’t say so though and instead underlined that they were all entitled and obligated to hear it, as it was their future as much as his. Clarice said much the same to her supporters, but you saw how strong of a supporter she was of the Ryanist ideals. Less so of their execution. It became late, the lights were dimming and Sandy and the others snuck away to get a little break after standing up all day. They wouldn’t miss them. Adelaide couldn’t leave as she was Heavy’s bodyguard, sadly. Claire did seem strangely cheery as she allowed Eddie to offer her his shoulder to rest on.

They looked around the group. Including Adelaide, there were only ten of them left now. Eleven if you counted the Little Sister, Lilly. They had all been quiet for so long about the deaths they had caused, but even more about the friends they had lost. They didn’t quite know what to say now all their sorrow seemed to have come at an end and they could finally survive a little bit easier.

Darren and Sandy held hands as they’d grown to feel quite warm inside, finally being together with their friends and each other. Wyatt seemed to have accepted they were meant to be together and there was no hatred or jealousy. Even Claire didn’t spoil the moment, seeing as she was softly sleeping and so they stood there together. Then Sally said: “Let us not forget how we got here.”

There was a dreadful silence for a moment, but then Wyatt said: “Yes, we shouldn’t forget what and who was sacrificed so we could live to see this brighter day.”

“With our friends,” Buck said.

“And family,” Ernie added.

“I’ll never forget… Archibald and his poor sense of humor,” Eddie said as Claire opened her eyes at the sound of the name, but Eddie didn’t notice. “He always tried his hardest to keep us entertained though. He was a smart fellow too. He gave everything to protect us, even those he’d never met before.”

“I’ll remember… Mandy, for always going out sightseeing with me and being the one to confide in for everything. She… didn’t have to die,” Sally said as she grew wide-eyed. “Oh I’m so sorry, I didn’t mean to… I’m sorry.”

“We all miss them, Sally,” Wyatt said and pulled a faint smile, which was quite something for him, so she returned it ten times fold.

“I like your dress a lot, Sandy,” Sally said gesturing at Sandy’s change of attire after she’d been walking around in her pale yellow dress since New Year. After Sandy spent the night with Darren, she believed it was time as she’d offered her virgin flower to Darren so it could bloom. And it was starting to smell horrendously, overpowering any perfume, except perhaps the smell in the air yesterday. Her wavy navy blue dress shone like the deep blue sea in the lights of Rapture and was draped around her elegantly as she felt radiant. And happy.

“Six times two is lemon… The air is full of ADAM… Clear as rainbows. Time to find the angels. Bubbles and sunshine, bubbles and rain. Bubbles and sunshine, bubbles and rain. I wanna see the sunshine, show me the sunshine! Sleepy angels shine, ADAM shines!” it sounded from the bag.

“I believe she’s hungry,” Sandy said with a smile to Darren.

Her beloved stepbrother nodded and proceeded to make the preparations along with Wyatt. The others would join in soon… They only hoped they could find a body far enough from all the hungry splicers at the plaza.

“The sweat of our brow… Could we receive it in full, this time?” Heavy asked.

“Yes, I believe so,” Clarice said as she looked to her supporters, but they were no longer looking at her or listening to the conversation.

Across of them, there was a mother letting her newborn drink. She seemed like a filthly labor woman whose blouse was torn from the fights and the hungry baby. She didn’t seem to take care of herself, except when it came to keeping alive, to feed her baby. Even them had children they wanted to keep safe and well-nourished. They weren’t a lower class of people, just a different one. Why their hard work was less worth than theirs, the industrials and the engineers, they couldn’t fathom at the moment.

However fragile this child was, one day it would be a valuable part of society. Their children weren’t any different when they were so small. The Ryanists just hummed as they agreed to the proposal: a decent pay for all of Rapture’s citizens.

“The Great Chain Rattles! Gas them, gas them all! The jews didn’t deserve this fate, but do these communists do! Destroy them before the destroy my city!” Ryan said through the line with Dr. Alexander as he closed off his office until judgment day would come. From his office, he would lead his city. From there, he would control everything and make sure the Great Chain would grow strong once again. From his secluded space, isolated from everyone else, he would put in his genetic key and gas the entirety of Rapture to restore order. With love.

A scream came flying into the group’s collective ears.

“Did you hear that?” Darren said.

“Hear what?” Wyatt asked as he was busy packing up his turrets.

Cries of agony filled the air as everyone rushed to the plaza in utter panic of what had just transpired there.

Ryan, Charlie thought. It’s always Ryan.

They arrived at the plaza. Ryan had betrayed his own ideals in a way no one could have foreseen.

Completed:

CHA-05: Teenage robot with organic skin starting war of sabotage and love.

However spliced they were, however less of men and women they had become, the citizens of Rapture had only been removed of their humanity by Ryan’s final act against the parasites by becoming one. Their free will was gone as they had become puppets of his chemical whims as they danced around on the national anthem of Rapture and Ryan ordered them around, instructing them on steps in ridiculous detail. They all exactly followed and obeyed his demands.

He threw a sonic boom to disperse the air as if it was poison that burned in their throats. He had to use all his EVE up, no matter what deformations such use would cause to him. He couldn’t become like them.

They had to run. Now. Away from any vents dispersing the pheromones. They couldn’t fathom what they saw between the splicers as their faces contorted in anguish and stupor at their bodies no longer doing what they wanted. Their minds slowly crumbled as had happened to the horde outside Talos Trappings. But between the splicers on the ground, dark red crusts began to form as all the blood that had been spilled just moments after Ryan’s treason was released into the air, dried and cracked. A mother and child laid with torn clothes and slashed throats on the floor as the baby was still suckling onto a bloodied breast.

All those who didn’t have enough ADAM in their system or had bought few gene tonics for the past few days that Ryan must have incorporated his chemical trigger in, Buck figured as Ernie covered their retreat, were slaughtered by the joined twisted force of Ryan. An unstoppable force.

Eddie wouldn’t let that happen to Claire, ever.

“EVE hypo!” Ernie yelled as Sally tossed him one.

He plunged it into his arm and released another sonic boom.

All those ADAM-less people, those that didn’t ‘evolve’ into monsters, were burned, shattered and fried by the murderous puppets of Ryan, the real monster. He wouldn’t let anyone go, especially not the group that had crossed him one time too many. Helping to control the free market, stealing and killing… Now they would be his slaves or his most tortured examples for the rest of the strays.

“There you are, parasites. Like vermin you sneak away from the man who wants to cure your disease, like insects you try to hide and evade my grip, the tug of the great chain, but no more! Bring them to me and then snap their necks,” Ryan said through the intercom.

Without as much as a hint on their sides, the splicers stopped dancing and raced across the bloodied plaza to oblige Ryan. Another sonic boom Ernie threw flung several of the splicers into the air, but they kept persisting. Soon they’d catch up and there was nowhere to run. The horde was still out there, there was no way past.

“What do we do?” Sally asked as she flung a spear telekinetically into a woman’s head.

Sally had lunch with her just the other day.

“I don’t know, there’s no way to run, I… We have to get somewhere the pheromones can’t reach us… We have to go there,” Sandy said as she gestured at the corridor to the very end of Rapture. There was still something there.

“There? Sandy we can’t go there, that’s Daedalus Dominion! It isn’t even attached to Talos Trappings anymore. Even if we go there, we’ll die, please,” Wyatt said as he threw a security turret with powerful fans to keep bending away the pheromones.

That awful smell of hypnotic chemicals, the stench of Ryan, it now filled the lungs of everyone they ever knew in Talos Trappings. Heavy, Clarice… it was too late for all of them.

“We have no other choice, run!” Sandy yelled.

Every time a splicer got past the security turret and Ernie’s sonic boom, the others struck with their plasmids, but they were running out of EVE fast. All their supplies were in the vault of Atlas’ rebels, what was left of them anyway, but going to get them would be suicide with that cloud filling every nook and cranny as they struggled to not breath it in.

Then they came. All three of them. Heavy, Clarice… and Adelaide.

Her cheeks were covered in blood, her teeth glistened as she licked them and she drew her big revolver that Wyatt had improved, from her cleavage as she spun the cilinder. She’d managed to smuggled it into the negotations, she knew they would fail. But not like this. Not like this.

She aimed at Sandy.

“What are you doing, please, remember who we are, fight it, do something to prove you’re stronger than that Addie!” Sandy yelled.

Addie fired and so did Darren.

“Whatever you need love,” Adelaide said as the hypnosis polyp got absorbed into her skin.

Darren pointed to Heavy and Clarice and ordered Adelaide to with his mind link to kill them. She obeyed as she seemingly smiled at him controlling her to protect them rather than to kill them. She still cried when she shot Heavy, again and again until he succumbed to the floor. Then she started flinging plasmids around and the others saw how horribly good she was in obliterating all that stood in her way. Geysers shot out of the floor as the splicers hit them, but not before Wyatt and Darren had charged each one with an electrobolt, killing every target in a second. Then, they hit the end of the corridor.

She ran over to the bag without a word, reached down into the bag and bit on her lip before pulling out the EVE hypos.

“She bit me, she kept biting me,” Claire muttered as she saw the bite marks were beginning to bleed.

Wrapping around a piece of her white dress around the wounds, making it shorter than it already was on stage for dancing and the other purpose Cohen had had in mind, she started passing around the hypos as she hid behind the others for cover against the plasmids. She jumped as Buck was set on fire. He used up his last First Aid kit and looked to Claire. She understood. More bite marks. That little runt was going to pay for this, Claire thought.

“Okay, when I say go, you rip open this hatch like a tin can, okay? The air supply and everything is just enough, so we have to be quick if we don’t want to drown in it, you ready?” Wyatt said.

“I got it,” Eddie said and braced himself.

“Go!” Wyatt yelled as one of his turrets beeped in distress and crashed into the floor, exploding on impact. He’d called it Ada.

Eddie pulled and pulled until finally he got it open. Wyatt jumped in started checking the systems for take-off.

“Everybody, get inside!” Eddie yelled.

Adelaide was getting shot far too many times as the strong hypnotize plasmid caused her to throw herself in front of Darren to protect him from the rain of bullets that came his way. Ryan had managed to get them to open the vaults. Clarice was holding Heavy’s grenade launcher and loading it.

To be continued…

Completed:

CHA-05: Teenage robot with organic skin starting war of sabotage and love.

Adelaide obliged and pulled the trigger on her revolver. The bullet flew through the air and dug itself deep into Clarice’s eye as she fell to the ground screaming. Then the screaming stopped.

“I can’t control her for much longer, the plasmid is telling me to let go!” Darren said.

He didn’t look back to the others as they were climbing into the bathysphere, but he wasn’t talking to himself. He tried to find the courage to do the only thing that would keep them alive.

“I can’t do it, I don’t want to…” Darren said as he squeezed the hypnotize plasmid until it broke.

“Darren, let go…” Adelaide said as she pushed him away. She dropped her revolver which slided all the way to Sandy’s feet. Sandy took one look at it and picked it up before electrocuting another splicer.

“Darren, take the security bot,” Wyatt said as he made the final preparations. He kept his head turned on the many dials and meters and tears streamed down from his eyes. He couldn’t show anyone.

Darren did what Wyatt said, sprinted to Sandy and the others and Ernie helped him close the door and lock it down. They looked on as Adelaide loosened her belt and revealed the edged blade hidden inside it for a final charge at the degenerate splicers, Ryan’s slaves. Darren must have felt when the control stopped, but he didn’t tell anyone and nobody asked for it. She could’ve come with them, but Darren would have to constantly regain control over her with his plasmid and when he fell asleep just one time, she could’ve slit all their throats before he could do anything about it. To zap her and protect Sandy. But he couldn’t make herself take her own life nor could he bring himself to end it with his own two hands. She’d die like she wanted to go.

Fighting.

Only the buzzing of the security bot briefly broke through the deafening silence in the bathysphere before Wyatt turned it off. Everyone was lonely at the bottom of the sea in an empty shell. Ryan hadn’t destroyed them, he’d done something far worse, something infinitely more inexcusable: he made them sacrifice their friend’s life to save their own. And as they sat like that in the bathysphere silently, some sobbing under their muffled robes or coat, others whisking away dirt in their eyes that just kept coming and others regretting having hated Adelaide and her no-nonsense approach, something else started to grow. Not only new life beginning and old lives continuing, but something darker and colder. Hatred. Revenge. Seething anger welling up like a storm. Ryan had to die for what he had done to them as well as the citizens of Rapture. They had to find Atlas and make him help them breach Hephaestus, where Ryan hid like a coward with his finger on a button. But first…

“W-where are we going?” Sandy said.

“Daedalus Dominion,” Wyatt said while keeping his back turned.

It was a torment just hearing her anguished voice, let alone seeing her beautiful face disrupted by the scorn Ryan had unleashed in her. Like a soft river overflowing and destroying everything in her path.

“Tell all of them about Daedalus Dominion please, Wyatt. I don’t think I can,” Darren said.

You could hear Wyatt taking a deep breath before he said: “Daedalus Dominion was once a proud department in the development of high tech Rapturian science. The best and brightest used it as an ultimate test batch for their experiments before they moved the Big Daddy training grounds to Fontaine’s tower. The people of Daedalus Dominion knew full well they’d been honored by receiving their district’s name and the namesake that came along with it. If only they had dug deeper in Greek mythology… Perhaps they knew what came, the fall of Rapture and they wanted to be the first district to do so. Anyway, they build a new tower on the bottom of the ocean. It was meant as an observatory where the bright minds could study the ocean, the city and look down upon Fontaine’s tower, the second highest building in Rapture. It became the highest when Icarus tower bent under the ocean’s pressure and crumbled, taking all the people in the district along with it as it struck holes in the hull of the Dominion of the best and brightest and they drowned. Talos Trappings’ engineers disconnected and distanced themselves from the failed testing ground both figuratively and literally. They just didn’t expect anyone would be crazy enough to actually try to go there again, but here we are. And we’re… doomed.”

“If we manage to survive, we can wait out the pheromone wave and develop something to counteract its effects. Whatever labs are still intact, they could provide us with the ADAM and tools we need,” Buck said.

“And then we return to kill Ryan,” Charlie said as he slammed his bat on the bathysphere’s hull. “For Addie.”

“For Addie,” everyone said in unison.

The quake that followed profoundly shook the disheveled group. They had arrived.

Wyatt nodded to Ernie and Eddie and they opened the door in good hope. There was air and they didn’t get flooded. It was a genuine miracle. They all toed out of the bathysphere and into to great hall that had collapsed on one side. Red curtains hung everywhere as a shrine to Ryan’s accomplishments as they had hung everywhere painted with golden empty phrases in the lighthouse they’d all passed through on their way to this hellhole all those years ago. As luck would have it, Ryan’s statue had been beheaded by a metal bar bearing a load, in the shape of a golf club.

“Let’s go onward, maybe we can find some food, I’m starving,” Wyatt said quickly and fired up his remaining security bot, Jimmy. Lonely it buzzed along and followed its lonelier master.

“Let’s follow him,” Darren said and offered his arm to Sandy, who gleefully accepted and laid her head to rest on his shoulder as they walked along.

Claire made a quick headcount. 2, 3,4, 6, 8 and Wyatt makes… 9. And that little brat. She wished she hadn’t counted. It reminded her of Archibald. Eddie was still with her and loved her no matter what horrible things she did. Why did she hurt him so much?

“I smell so much ADAM in the air…” the Little Sister mused in Darren’s bag. Sandy had taken it along in the bathysphere before Darren came running with the security bot called Jimmy.

They came to a waterfall of sorts: cold ocean water was streaming in through a tiny crack in the hard glass ceiling and showered a food stand that had severely started to rust. Everyone turned in horror as they heard the sound of a cylinder spinning. Darren looked to Sandy holding Addie’s big revolver and looking up to the others’ pale white faces, she put the cylinder back in place and looked down ashamed she’d just done that.

Wyatt however looked back and said: “Keep it, so we’ll remember her.”

Darren nodded to Sandy and she felt his shoulders shake as he did so. The others nodded in agreement and Sandy felt relieved, if just a tiny bit compared to before.

They continued to the main dome of the prestigious project that Daedalus Dominion once was. Ernie started recalling all the experiments he’d read about that they’d tried to do here: Robotic Little Sisters, Spliced Hunters, gene recombination with non-humanoid species, the Alphas, Rocket turrets and more top secret experiments that he was never given clearance for. Seeing as they were about to crack that shell, that give him all the clearance he’d wished he’d never received. Then again, none of the people in the district survived and they would only find bodies in varying degrees of decay, depending on if they had been lying in one of the many water streams that flowed like icy treacherous rivers throughout the district. They arrived at the center, the dome inside the dome with massive reinforced steel bearings holding back the weight of the ocean or perhaps the world. Like Atlas. Yet, water had been leaking for years now and clinging to the metal had streamed down and formed a giant basin several stories high. The stainless steel remained without stains from rusting, but Ernie shuddered when he saw a red mark way above him on the ceiling.

“Welcome to hell’s secluded island, people,” Wyatt said.

Goodbye and farewell, hope you are in a better place, Adelaide.
From the survivors…

Last edited by Scriptor Scorpio; 4th December 2012 at 10:37 AM.

Completed:

CHA-05: Teenage robot with organic skin starting war of sabotage and love.

Yeah, little slip, sorry about that. Oh by the way, see any spelling errors, be sure to let me know, hate to have it ruin the story

Chapter XXXII: A darker heritage

“We’ll set up shop here?” Wyatt asked gesturing to no particular spot.

“Yeah sure, it’s been a long day, we all have to catch some sleep…” Sandy said before she yawned once or twice. One and a half sorta.

Some of the others joined in. They didn’t look particularly well, even when you counted the fact they were exhausted and had all kinds of gruesome things on their clothes, hands and face that they didn’t want to know where it came from. They stood at the edge of what had once been a tank storing something before the dome started filling up with ice cold seawater through the cracks in the ceiling. Some bent over to wash all of their parts that looked black or dark red and checked for wounds. At least it seemed, they had made it out of Talos Trappings in one piece. That was certainly something.

“Come,” Sandy said to Darren and pulled his arm to the edge of the water to rinse his face and arms.

Darren shivered even before Sandy put her palms filled with cold water to his arms and Sandy smiled as Darren suddenly wasn’t as tough as he pretended to be as Sandy made him feel like that young little boy that stared at the ‘fishies’ in outside of the ‘bowl’ as he called Rapture. A giant fishbowl with the fishes on the outside and air on the inside. At least in here it seemed, things started to revert back to their original purpose: a cold dark ocean that pierced through every barrier.

“No wounds at all, you’re in perfect health, what do you say about that?” Sandy said with a smile.

“Go into the deep, brother…” it sounded.

It was like it was coming from the water itself and it was calling out to all those who managed to survive the hubris of Rapture, its overzealous pride.

Darren jumped back and said to Sandy: “Did you hear that?”

“Hear what?” Sandy asked.

Darren turned and the others and Wyatt looked up as well as Darren said: “Did anyone hear that? Tell me somebody heard it.”

“Look Darren, if even you are going insane, I’m waking up because that’s a nightmare that even Rapture can’t manage to create,” Claire said out of the blue.

She hadn’t been talking since… a while now that Darren thought about it. She’d never spoken to him directly, so why now… Now that Addie was dead.

“No… I think it hit me heavier than I thought it would, she, I… I’m going to bed,” Darren said as he tossed his bag with the Little Sister Lilly in it over his shoulder rather rudely. He knew she wouldn’t mind.

The few lights shone an eerie light on the once great Daedalus central dome. The lights ran on an experimental process developed by scientists to run separately from the geothermal power Hephaestus powered the rest of Rapture with. Another way they had tried to make their own might until the very end that their progress ended abruptly and took them with it. Way over on the other side of the basin Darren spotted part of the Icarus tower that had tumbled down to rest against the dome. Its long, pointy end seemed like it could pop their balloon of safety any second now. Claire of all people had been right: it would be a nightmare if he went insane. He shouldn’t let these strange thoughts triumph over his will.

Sandy went to lie besides him and Darren moved Lily, having fallen asleep in her ‘sleeping bag’ with few holes, out of the small covered sleeping spot he’d made so Sandy had room to lie in his arms. She turned around to meet Darren’s eyes and felt his arm holding her stronger and pulling her closer. They kissed like every time was the last time and they knew they didn’t have time to wait for anything.

“Mr. Bubbles, Mr. Bubbles, are you there? Are you there? Come and give me lollies, come and bring me toffees. Teddy bears... teddy bears,” the Little Sister called Lilly mused in her sleep.

It was more of an ADAM processing cycle than truly sleeping, but she still acted like she was a perfectly human girl about eleven years of age, singing a song from her childhood, but disturbed. Perfectly normal for most people, apart from her being obsessive, compulsive and she drank human blood.

Whatever Wyatt tried to think of the sister as someone who helped them and thus needed to be treated with love, he couldn’t bring himself to do so. He wasn’t as compassionate and Darren, well… He’d do anything for Sandy and more. Wyatt had to erase all of the things he didn’t want to remember from his mind and then everything would be fine. But in the meantime he couldn’t bring his eyes to blink, let alone rest for a few borrowed minutes of sleep.

“Can’t sleep either huh?” Sally said as she went to sit next to Wyatt on the bearing that served as a bench for the restless.

“No, no I’m afraid not. I’ll keep guard anyway, at least I’ll do something useful. But you should go sleep, you look tired,” Wyatt said, though he didn’t quite look at Sally long enough to make such an assessment.

“You look tired too,” Sally said with a laugh before she turned to him again and said: “I can’t stop thinking about it either, no matter how hard I try.”

“Well, I’m not sure if…” Wyatt said as he flashed by all the things he’d been thinking about in his mind and found the thing that Sally knew about and thought about. Not that very important thing, not Darren and Sandy, not Daedalus Dominion, but Addie. “I, I don’t show it, but I miss her too.”

“Yeah, me too… But that wasn’t what I was thinking about,” Sally said as she turned to face Wyatt if he turned himself as well.

He did so briefly and saw Sally’s eyes light up for a moment before he looked away again. His cheeks reddened as he forgot all the misery and atrocities they had witnessed or caused.

“Why-why… You don’t like it when people call you that, do you?” Sally said.

“Not really, it reminds me of… what I should’ve given up a long time ago,” Wyatt said.

“Perhaps it’s time now to do so,” Sally said and moved half of an inch closer to Wyatt so her skirt touched his belt and their hips got locked into place.

“Perhaps… but, I’m afraid to say it, but… aren’t you mad at me? For ignoring you and following her all the time? Aren’t I just taking advantage of you because I can no longer have what I’ve been obsessing about all these years?” Wyatt said.

He was still afraid to face Sally, especially now that she was so eerily close to him, but he was more afraid he’d hurt her crushingly with no chance at repair if he moved right now.

“I don’t think I have time to worry about those things, not anymore. All I know is I want happiness and I’ll have only one shot at it. I don’t want nobody else but you, Wyatt,” Sally said as Wyatt still couldn’t face her and looked down to her crossbow.

Was there even a point in surviving if he didn’t have Sandy? Why did he want Sandy if he’d always dreamed of becoming the greatest engineer, greater than Ryan, greater than anyone? He’d gone to work with McClendon Robotics so he could learn from the master himself, who’d even made functioning Little Sisters with slugs producing ADAM flawlessly, but went bankrupt because of the Big Daddies leaving them alone and not caring for machines. Not like McClendon cared, not like Wyatt did.

Maybe he didn’t need to manically love someone to keep going, maybe he could prove his worth on his own and help the others survive this hellhole of a hellhole of a city. But that didn’t mean he should forget why they were surviving in the first place.

“I can’t promise you anything and I don’t want love just to have love, but I do want to make you happy because if you’re happy, I’m happy and that’s a rare thing,” Wyatt said as he stood up and looked Sally in the eyes. Her shiny, naďve, innocent eyes that were a pale shade of blue. Her wide-eyed gaze made everyone notice she had blue eyes the moment she walked into a room, but only now Wyatt could see there were also brown spots in her eyes, as if they’d been sown in there like the freckles on her cheeks.

Sally stood up as well and gazed back with those tantalizing eyes. She thought he’d just walk away like he always did, but he didn’t. Softly he pressed his lips against hers… then he walked away.

Completed:

CHA-05: Teenage robot with organic skin starting war of sabotage and love.

“I know why it has to be children, but why just girls? This I cannot determine why, but I know it is so. Fontaine says 'ah, one less bathroom to build in the orphanage'. It is amazing to watch the effect of ADAM on their small bodies. Their own cells, replaced by the new stems the instant they are damaged. These children are practically invulnerable. It is a shame you could not do the same thing to an adult. There would be quite a market for a man you could not kill.” Brigid Tenenbaum, creator of the Little Sisters

“I’m going on guard duty,” Wyatt said and turned to Sally.

She however was still all frozen up after Wyatt had unexpectedly kissed her. Before he had turned around again however, she followed him a few meters behind, but persistent. Baby steps Sally, baby steps, she thought to herself.

So they quietly walked around before leaving the dome to spy around the corridors for anything they could have a use for. The district had been abandoned long ago, so much of it was in disrepair and dead as a graveyard, encased in a metal casket. On some walls, bicycles and broken turrets there was more rust than usable metal and however great and destructive ADAM and the means to filter and treat it, it didn’t last long being left alone to die. A horrid smell wafted from the sea slug breeding grounds and the sea water pipe had clogged up, leaving the slugs to rot. Neither ADAM or Little Sisters would come from this place ever again. Sally was quite the sweet girl who got startled by the slightest negative or dangerous looking thing and abhorred her having to kill other former human beings to survive possibly even more than Sandy did and ten times more than Adelaide ever did, so you’d expect her to shiver and scream at all the dead, decay and filth they came across.

Now however she filled herself with all the happy feelings she ever felt, because of her friends and because of Wyatt and started to skip along the floor as they went through the dark corridors. She must look quite disturbed to other sane people, though Wyatt was no longer sane so he wouldn’t know. Her childlike way of walking she had readopted however reminded one of them and then the other of the Little Sisters as they looked for ADAM in corpses. Sally acted a little bit like Little Sisters and that made one of both look more like the other than Wyatt had thought they were like.

“So how long do you think we have to wait for Ryan to forget about us and stop the pheromones? If we can’t find a total antidote to his poison, that is,” Sally asked.

“Maybe we could look for help… Sandy and Darren’s parents! We were supposed to find them, but we didn’t. Does that mean they might’ve…” Sally said.

“No, I think they’re still alive but they fled before we could find them. Maybe Sandy can lead us to them or if we’re strong enough we can barge through the barricades near the welcoming center and take the bathysphere back up. Or we kill Ryan,” Wyatt said without the slightest remorse.

“I don’t think we have a choice. Charlie would do anything to do that more than escaping. But what happened to Atlas, Sofia Lamb, Brigid Tenenbaum? They didn’t take ADAM for all I know and they would love to bring down Ryan,” Sally said.

She kicked a rock over and saw the entrails of a cat without the cat lying under it. She gagged as Wyatt said:

“Atlas lost his spliced up army and went into hiding for all I know. Ryan made Lamb disappear and Tenenbaum… didn’t she go insane and run around killing Little Sisters? Anyway, Ryan has done everything to regain his iron grip on this city and we are his prisoners now.”

“Why did they use Little Sisters in the first place to make ADAM? Look what such a despicable act has done to us all. If I had ever been kidnapped to be made into a Little Sister, my parents couldn’t have saved me…” Sally said as she bowed her head and held her arms around her hollow shell of a body, which she could count every rib of now.

She’d lost some weight all right, she wasn’t pudgy in one little place anymore, but she didn’t feel pretty at all being so hungry and frail. She felt like a skeleton waiting to collapse on itself.

“Hold on, do you hear that?” Wyatt said as he sharpened his attention and turned his ears to the corridor up ahead. It couldn’t be one of them, it sounded too… old for that. And eerily familiar.

“Hear what?” Sally said out loud as she’d quickly returned to her cheery demeanor.

“Sush, be quiet, there’s something there that is calling us…” Wyatt said as he let his hand crackle with blue arcs of electricity.

Whatever it was, Wyatt wouldn’t let it sneak up on him just like that.

“Or maybe it’s calling for you,” Sally said.

Wyatt couldn’t resist the call any longer, he must be going insane but who cares he thought as he rounded the corner and found… nothing. Another basin of water, being as eerily quiet and ice cold as ever.

“Wyatt, Claire might say we can’t have Darren go insane but that goes twice for you, please,” Sally said as she glanced around the place looking for a voice she hadn’t even heard in the first place.

“Okay okay, we‘ll go back to the others and think of something,” Wyatt said as he offered his arm to Sally.

The blue-eyed girl felt like a young school girl again as she gladly accepted Wyatt’s arm and told herself she wasn’t going to lose Wyatt. Not now, not ever.

Without warning Wyatt fell forward onto the floor hitting it hard with his nose and chin and pulled along Sally with him. In an instant Wyatt was yanked back to where they had come from and Sally held onto him while trying to find something to hang onto and get him off whatever grabbed in. She tried to look back but that loosened her grip on Wyatt and she quickly took her crossbow to fire right over his shoulder to the slimy threat as they were nearing the water. The thing screamed horribly as Sally’s arrow hit its target and let loose of Wyatt before diving into the water.

Wyatt quickly rolled over, stood up and asked: “Where did it go?”

“There, the basin!” Sally yelled.

Wyatt charged his wrist and forearm to an incredible power and voltage before releasing a hurling bolt of lightning into the water and electrocuting everything in it. As he heard the beast screaming as it took in water just below the surface, he tried to catch his breath. That was the last and worst day of that ugly thing. It must’ve come from the ocean, which meant there were more things swimming around in the basins that had formed in Daedalus Dominion. They had to warn the others. A lot of dead fish were surfacing because of the horrific current that had tortured their bodies through the water. It would certainly lure more dwellers that had been lurking on the bottom of the basin. Maybe there were even connections between the several pits filled with water that they couldn’t see. And perhaps they could reach farther with whatever that beastly thing undocumented by mankind yanked Wyatt and by extension Sally to the floor.

After running at the top of their lungs they arrived at the temporary camp the others had set up.

“Everyone pack up, there are things in the water that just tried to kill me,” Wyatt yelled.

Most people in the group had just managed to fall asleep and were quite moody at being woken up to say the least. Most of them weren’t even near being well rested and couldn’t move a finger let alone throw back a sarcastic comment. Unsurprisingly the one that finally answered didn’t do anything all day anyway and almost seemed like she didn’t use tons of make-up to appear glamorous and high class.

“Shut it Claire, or I’ll electrocute you before Eddie wakes up, we have to move, now!” Wyatt said.

Sally helped up Sandy and Darren who had snuggled together and even they sounded a bit ungrateful and unbelieving about them being in danger, but eventually they pulled themselves together, picked up their stuff and the bag with Lily sleeping in it like a not so horribly genetically altered baby girl and started directing to the others to a safer place to spend the night.

“Anywhere there is no water!” Wyatt said before looking up to the dome leaking in the water of the entire ocean. “Okay, anyone got any thoughts?”

“The labs, they must’ve secured ‘em somehow!” Ernie said.

The group started running after Ernie and Buck who both had a faint idea, one through experience and one through instinct, where the laboratories would have been built so they wouldn’t be affected by temporary leaks. Safe to say, they wouldn’t be secured for permanent gushing and spouting leaks of freezing ocean water, but it was their best bet to escape whatever horrific ocean dwelling beasts were looking for human meat snacks like Wyatt.

“They would have to sit high and dry in order to keep working and also… aha!” Ernie said.

He ran to a door at the edge of the dome that was quite close to the hallways Wyatt and Sally had been exploring. All by himself, he suddenly wrecked it open and went up the stairs hidden in the dark hallway. Wyatt and Sally looked back anxiously at the water basin where they had been attacked, went through the door and closed it behind them.

Climbing the stairs seemed to take hours as it went quite steep in unexpected parts and every three steps you could hear someone shout as they mistook their step in the dark. People like Darren, Sandy, Wyatt and Sally held up their arm as it crackled with electricity and glowed a tiny bit, but it didn’t help them see much better.

“Eh guys, let me go in front,” Charlie said.

“Huh? Why?” Sandy said.

Without saying a word Charlie passed by the others and then activated his only plasmid. Every visible part of Charlie started to shine with a golden color before he lit up like a bright candle in the darkness. The light that shone from his skin and eyes blinded people as they stumbled against the wall of the staircase. As Wyatt was the first to recuperate from the colored flashes that appeared every time someone closed their eyes or opened them, he said: “Wait, this is that plasmid they scanned back at Talos Trappings, isn’t it? Bright Bulb? It was meant for attention seekers, but it was a useless thing lying in between the other plasmids we stole from Ryan.”

“Yeah, I thought if nobody took it, I might as well do so,” Charlie said. “Comes in quite handy now, doesn’t it?”

“Yeah yeah, just move a bit up ahead and dim yourself a bit, it’s like your ego suddenly grew as big as the sun,” Wyatt said as he kept his hand in front of his face just to be sure.

“Got it,” Charlie said.

With the path up ahead hurting their eyes now because of Charlie, the others glanced aside to the wall they were leaning against as they made their way up. Great works of art had been recreated to adorn the formerly pristine walls, though now that seemed like a pointless effort as the paint had become distorted because of the many streams of water running down its canvas. This was one of the proudest districts in all of Rapture, making more progress with their labs and testing grounds than even Point Prometheus, before it took over fallen Daedalus Dominion’s role. Point Prometheus had even been a museum about the splendors of the ocean before it was hastily converted to Big Daddy training grounds. And now this was place was like a dead man walking behind a dying man. If Rapture was swallowed by the sea, Daedalus Dominion would be right there to follow after it.

Finally, they came up after Charlie and saw the light coming in from the right. Sandy and Sally rushed ahead through the open doors that were letting through the light and went onto the large balcony that hung over the gap and water basins below them, which seemed to be former homes and work places, which doubled as testing environments for the more dangerous experiments and what they could do in a ‘normal’ Rapture district. All in the name of progress for the sake of progress.

Charlie ‘dimmed’ himself as he was also running out of EVE. The whole group stood on the balcony as they could see the whole metal inner dome and even a glimpse of the ocean dome through a particularly big crack in the not so indestructible shell of Daedalus Dominion. They could see their improvised sleeping places as well as the way to the entrance where they had come through not so long ago. Where they had come through, without Adelaide.

“I wish she could see this,” Sally said.

“Me too,” Darren said.

“Guys, the labs?” Ernie said.

“Do they have any food there?” Charlie said.

“I doubt it,” Wyatt said.

“Well in that case I’ll stay right here,” Charlie said as he sat down on the ground and jabbed himself with an EVE hypo.

Sally, Claire and Sandy also stayed behind and looked on as Charlie yelped as the blue fluid coursed through his veins and refilled his strength. You could see his blood throbbing with the stuff as they started to accept the EVE instead of blood as his lifeline. They all had been feeling it: without a constant supply of ADAM, they were starting to weaken and change as their bodies craved the stuff and demanded it be fed it. But they didn’t have any left.

“We’ll have to use Lily to find us some ADAM, soon. But could there still be any left in a place where the bodies are so rotten?” Sandy said to Sally.

“We’re all rotten inside,” Claire said.

She seemed to be talking about herself.

Meanwhile, Darren, Ernie, Buck, Eddie and Wyatt had stumbled upon a supply closet which had a ton of security on it and a heavy lock to boot, but through a combined hacking and ruthlessly powerful effort, they got it open and found intriguing chemicals inside.

“Hey, we could make something out of this. There isn’t any ADAM too, it can’t exist out of a living body for this long. Unless we can find some sea slug farms. They had to have a small supply ready in case the vent system broke. Maybe because of a collision with a whale or something else and the Little Sisters crawling through it with some ADAM were to be washed away into the ocean,” Ernie said.

“Long story short Ernie?” Wyatt said.

“This could work,” Ernie said.

“Help help, somebody help!” somebody yelled.

It was Claire. Eddie dropped whatever he was holding with Ernie just narrowly catching it before the other young mean went after Eddie and a very distraught sounding Claire.

“What is it?” Eddie said as he saw Claire looking around for a way to go and find Eddie and the others.

She held her hands in front of her, hopelessly feeling so weak and helpless.

“Don’t worry, we’ll go. Where are they, still on the balcony?” Eddie asked.

Claire nodded before they all ran as fast as they could and charged their plasmids. As they rounded the corner, they saw Charlie swinging his bat as hard as he could against a green-skinned splicer with glowing yellow eyes. There were dozens of them swarming around Sandy and Sally.

Completed:

CHA-05: Teenage robot with organic skin starting war of sabotage and love.

The creature hardly looked human anymore what with its webbed feet, distorted face and complementary expression and it clawing at Sandy as she tried to burn off it and its many fellow abominations.

Sally wasn’t good at close combat. The crossbow she had tried to fire lay a few meters further, near the edge of the balcony. Charlie swung his way towards the girls, but Sally had just enough strength to push him back towards the others to save him from their regrettable fate. These things didn’t fear bullets, they had several dug into their chest and back as they still kept on attacking relentlessly scratching and clawing until they’d draw blood. And then…

“Everyone make room, I’m gonna blast them right off the balcony!” Ernie said as he carelessly tossed Wyatt aside.

“Wait, you’ll take Sandy and Sally out with them, they won’t survive the fall!” Darren yelled.

“Tell them to hold on, I’m already charging!” Ernie said as he held up his hand.

“Sandy, Sally, grab onto something, now!” Buck said.

Sally nodded at him as Wyatt saw her face having gone from being overjoyed with childlike an innocent love to being contorted with fear and sadness as she was close to losing all the things mentioned before. But she wasn’t about to give up yet. She jabbed an EVE hypo into her forearm as Sandy blasted one of the green, yellow-eyed freaks with ice-cold death before Sally could get a hold off a pipe that hang by a thread from the wall. It flew into her hand before she launched it into the ground and grabbed Sandy’s hand.

“Do it!” Sally said.

As if it was Ernie’s own roar, the sonic boom flew over the balcony with a deafening sound hitting all those that were in range and threw the monstrous green splicers over the railing of the balcony, plunging them into the abyss below. Fish food for the bigger predators of the deep ocean. They were safe, for now.

“Those… those were fricking humans for ****’s sake,” Charlie said as he dropped his bat and fell on his behind.

“Those weren’t humans, not even splicers,” Eddie said as he had arrived with Claire.

“Oh yeah, so how come they walked like people, looked like people and even frickin’ yelled like people? We’ve all turned into animals since that war started anyway,” Charlie said.

“What… were they doing down here?” Sandy said as Sally helped her up.

As Sally pulled the pipe back out of the ground, tossed a glance aside to the balcony and cursed behind her mouth, Wyatt said: “There might be worse things down here than those green things or the thing that attacked Sally and me. Our schedule just got changed. We need a cure for Ryan’s pheromones now, before they wreck the bathysphere and our only way back.”

“And us,” Darren said.

“Well, we don’t have a cure now, but we’ll see what we can do,” Ernie said.

“Okay, we’ll do everything to protect you,” Darren said as he held up his electrified arm.

“Me too,” Sandy said proudly.

The loud bang came out of nowhere as everyone ducked for cover. Then, again another loud bang as if metal clenched into metal and cracked its knuckle for the fight to come. A third one. What the hell was happening?

“Hold on a second,” Wyatt said as he held up his fingers.

Another loud bang. And another one.

“That’s five…” Buck said.

Seven more followed as the others saw nothing moving at all. It sounded a lot more distant and yet way too loud to not be seeable by now. Was it a giant bronze man ready to crush their little party? No…

“It’s… New year, that’s the new year clock sounding off midnight. What else would be so loud and obnoxious that people would have still allowed it? Only if it was… once a year,” Wyatt said.

“It’s been a whole year already?” Darren said with slight disbelief.

“It’s… 1960,” Sandy said.

Couples shuffled together and shared a brief kiss as was customary and they remembered how much they loved that other person, how happy they were. Claire pulled Eddie towards her and kissed him before she sneered: “And could we get to keeping ourselves alive right now, like immediately? Laurel and Hardy, get on with it!”

“Better hurry before she starts cracking Chaplin jokes,” Charlie muttered as he offered his help with the pheromone antidote.

“Since when does that girl even make jokes?” Ernie asked.

“Beats me,” Buck said.

“Now!” Claire yelled as she held onto Eddie’s arm, whose owner was still quite dazed at what had just happened.

“I suggest you don’t attract any more attention,” Wyatt said, “though you did good. We survived. Get Lily to them, will you?”

Darren handed Claire the bag at Wyatt’s gesturing and Claire widened her eyes as she tried to persuade him otherwise, but Wyatt didn’t even blink. He kept staring at her until she accepted the Little Sister bag and put the straps over her shoulders.

“God, how much does this way?” Claire said before she trotted along to the labs, muttering and complaining as she went. Eddie watched as she did

“Okay, we need to make a plan, protect this place at all costs. I say this is what we do…” Wyatt said to the ones that were left. It was basically the inner circle minus… Adelaide; Sally stood as close as possible to Wyatt and Sandy and Darren stood as close as possible to one another. Eddie didn’t know what to do except listen. Seeing as he was the big bruiser that kinda didn’t screw up all the time. They would need him. Claire would need him.

And now Claire was carrying that filthy little monster on our back so it could do whatever disgusting thing Laurel and Hardy had a use for for her. And that traitor Charlie… Come to think of it, she was also kind of a traitor. At least to these people. All she had cared about up till now was survival. Nothing else. She thought she’d been safe in Talos Trappings but she had been wrong like everybody else. Chances are she was going to die here. Chances are that when Eddie finally snapped and realized she had been manipulating him to survive and nothing more, she wouldn’t make it anymore as everything and everyone would become her mortal enemy and they would give their life to kill her, the one that loathes them, everyone and everything, including herself.

She felt the weight of Lily pushing down on her knees and feet. Probably drank every single baby bottle filled with intestinal ADAM she could fill before they got gassed and now she was useless, what with these green-eyed monsters probably eating one another and leaving no bodies. What if she… took this creepy monstrosity’s ADAM and used it for herself, to get out of here? She thought for two seconds and realized there had to be Gatherer’s Gardens around here somewhere and Ryan wouldn’t have planned that much ahead before the fall of Daedalus Dominion, so she wouldn’t be controlled by the pheromones. What if she choked the life out of something that shouldn’t even exist, an abomination… like her. The last sane woman in Rapture and she was the biggest monster on the inside, underneath her pristine white skin and deep inside her deflowered and contorted body that lost all her elegance…

Completed:

CHA-05: Teenage robot with organic skin starting war of sabotage and love.

She… she couldn’t kill the Little Sister. Not because it wasn’t the right thing to do, but because she was too scared to do anything she felt like doing. Did Claire even care if what she did was right for anyone but her?

It would be long from now, that this young child would have a twisted future. She only vaguely remembered what had brought her here, at the age of sixteen, looking through the porthole of a strange diver’s helmet. She was long and gangly and almost as tall as her former protector. Who was her daddy or her big brother she sometimes remembered? Where were they now? The only thing that seemed to matter now for Lily was screaming at anything touching a Little Sister, a title she no longer bore. Perhaps she was dreaming all of this, her in shining armor with a long sharp needle read to suck the life out of everyone that reminded her this nightmare of a crumbling city was all too real. Sometimes Lily had visions of this future and sometimes she dreamt she was lying dead in the water, slowly melting away into a cold pool dripping from the ceiling. And then she crawled back onto her feet, climbed the tallest structures and looked on at the lights of the cursed city of Rapture.

And then the little girl fell back into her brainwashed thoughts, about lollipops and daddies and brothers in shining armor, guarding her from any dumb monsters waiting to be ‘unzipped’ while she watched over the sleeping angels dressed in elegant suits or dresses. Red veils hung over her head and red ‘flower petals’ flowed from the wings of the angels. Only a little girl with yellow instead of blind eyes could see the world in such a light.

What would the fate of this little girl be? What would the fate of all of them be?

Claire stepped along, muttering rich spoiled girl’s comments as if she wanted to prove she was a living stereotype.

“We have to hurry, we can’t stay here for weeks on end, there isn’t any food left, not for a long time has anything grown here, not by itself, not on the bottom of the ocean,” Ernie said as he rummaged through all the supplies they had gathered.

“Then let’s get on it,” Charlie said without giving it much thought.

“You don’t understand, it’s not that simple. Ryan wouldn’t be so foolish to let us, the ragtag rogues that have caused him so much trouble and cost him so much money, make a simple antidote to his pheromone that just won him the war. I don’t think there’s enough time. If only… we could find a temporary solution, find a way so the pheromone can’t affect us. That way, we can surprise Ryan, disable the ventilation system or filter it somehow…” Ernie said.

The more he rambled on, the less anyone could understand as in what he was actually talking about. The situation wasn’t hopeless, it was impossible. Even if Ryan didn’t wreck the bathysphere line and pushed the fallen district into the sea, it would take weeks for them counter the pheromone responsive agent in the ADAM of their plasmids and gene tonics so the gas wouldn’t affect them. Even worse, Ryan would instantly dispatch hypnotized splicers to finish them off when they vented away the gas in their first encounter. Ryan hadn’t been that sportive in the least. And they had lost Adelaide. Someone in the group knew they were next or maybe they all thought they were next.

“Ernie, can you make it?” Charlie asked.

“No…” Ernie said. “But Buck can. I found a stash… of Brain boosts.”

“You could take ‘em,” Buck said. “You know everything there is to know about chemistry.”

“But you can make your brain to intuitively find a way. Years of research should have started, well, years ago. You can do it,” Ernie said.

He picked up a few bottles from the desk. By themselves they were useless. A strong arm was drawn on every etiquette. He showed it to Charlie and Buck before he said: “A stronger arm. A sharper brain.”

Then he downed the first bottle before anyone could stop him. And then more of them. He clenched his fists as his mass grew and grew. His bones hardened as his muscles tightened to support them and vice versa. He grew twice Buck’s size and three times his own before he said: “And some Armored shelley, yep… oops, gotta watch that, gotta think first before I say something. So… Your turn Bucky.”

Claire had watched the transformation. She was horrified and yet… She recognized something in Ernie’s eyes. They had grown more dull, less fretting about details and yet as honest as ever, always trying to do his best. It was the look in Eddie’s eyes. The look of someone wanting to protect something. Someone. Everyone.

“Here’s the little rut,” Claire said as she turned around. “Take good care of her.”

As soon as Claire had left, Charlie muttered something about Claire being as ‘charming’ as ever.

“Hold on a second,” Charlie said. “Take good care? Of ‘her’, not it? Was that really Claire?”

“Whether it’s a shape shifter or not, we can shoot her in the head regardless, right?” Ernie asked.

Buck looked at the bottles of Brain Boost in front of him. This time he couldn’t mistake them for strength boosting tonics. It was now or never. They could still get out of this alive.

A long winded roar echoed through the falling district of Daedalus Dominion. Everybody recognized it: it was the song of a whale as it passed through Rapture, looking for a mate. But yet, it sounded just a bit different.

“Hold on a second,” Wyatt said. “That almost sounds like… a female.”

Darren looked up from his tender embrace with Sandy right at his side and his arm around his waist and said with an almost naďve frown: “Really now Wyatt, you have a beautiful woman like Sally at your side and you’re going to talk about a female whale you recognize? That’s just a little bit weird.”

Then Wyatt froze as the sound seemed to come from below them. Whatever shoddy way this district was built, Wyatt was sure it was built on solid rock and no whale could pass through there. He leaned over the railing as he pulled himself away from Sally.

“What’s wrong, Wy… Wy…” Darren said as he froze as well.

“It’s the female whale Darren… Mother…” Wyatt said as he kept looking down.

Darren leaned over the railing. Sandy first whispered a few times, then yelled as Darren wouldn’t answer her.

“What is happening Wyatt, talk to me!” Sally exclaimed as she shivered.

Before they could look over the railing as well, it happened in less than a second. It was too late to hold on, it was the last thing anyone had expected including Wyatt and Darren. They fell and fell and fell… Untill they smashed into the ground and a big pool of blood spread out from under them.

Sandy yelled in disbelief. No, no this was a nightmare Rapture couldn’t make, that only her mind feared and so created to keep her awake and alert. She threw all her cyclone traps unto the floor below and jumped with Sally following shortly after.

The winds engulfed both of them as they plummeted towards the mini tornados and felt their speed lessening. The strength of her traps was so great that they came to a standstill a meter from the ground before they were thrown upwards again and landed in an arc a few meters further. The landing was hard and painful, but they almost shook off their bruises like it was nothing and rushed to Darren and Wyatt’s sides.

It couldn’t be, they couldn’t be dead. Why did this happen, why did they fall? What drew them towards… And then they saw the metal monstrosity rising from the water. It had found them.

Warning: Possible hiatus incoming. Could post another chapter next week and the week after but the break will last untill mid February

I'm back and intending to finish this and Pokémen and then continuing some projects, hopefully. Without further ado...

Chapter XXXVII: The spells of old, the past that sticks

It had risen from the water and the bronze giant towered above them with menacing yellow eyes that seemed like holes into their twisted minds. But it wasn’t a Big Daddy. It was something that was as least as dangerous, but also decidedly different. And Sandy couldn’t care one bit.

Darren wasn’t moving and neither was Wyatt. What could they do? A First Aid Kit, yes, Sandy thought as she searched herself and Darren for one. When she didn’t find one right away she started ripping away at satchels on Darren in an effort to tear something out of it that might not be there. She frantically moved with her hands and so she didn’t hear it the first time when Sally eventually shouted: “Take it, I found another, use it on him now!”

Sandy glanced aside, grabbed it and used it as her hands became covered in blood. He couldn’t be dead, he couldn’t be dead. As the bronze monstrosity roared, Wyatt moved and after that so did Darren.

“I… I survived?” Wyatt said as he coughed up blood before he looked to Sally’s distorted expression and smiled. She was with him and now she knew he was okay.

Now she knew…

“Darren,” Wyatt yelped as he scrambled to his feet and went on, “look away you two, please, you have to trust…”

Wyatt ran into the mechanical hand of the thing they had dropped towards and screamed as hard that bones seemed to split. Sandy looked to Darren who also tried to get away as his whole body began to shake.

“What’s happening, what did I give you!” Sandy yelled as she shuddered covering her mouth in utter silent horror.

“It’s okay, just look away, I’ll be fine in just a minute…” Darren said and he couldn’t have told a lie as bad as he just did.

He stood up on his leg started to heal at a staggering rate that no First Aid Kit could accomplish. He had never needed EVE hypo’s, Lily the Little Sister trusted him and almost nobody else, he’d never been hurt for long periods of time no matter how much danger he threw himself into to protect Sandy. And now his leg had healed in the shape of a disturbingly big fishing hook pointing out at all angles as it had healed too quickly before it could be set.

Darren and Wyatt had done this before it seemed as Sally and Sandy both looked on as they hammered on their own legs, ribs and more as they broke them again to grow back right this time. In under thirty seconds they could walk and breath normally again and every little cut they had closed and tidied up. On the outside the odd spindly red dried up blood remained. It was if ADAM wasn’t in their blood, it was their blood.

“What… are you?” Sandy said as she stumbled backwards.

Darren wanted to calm her, but she yelled: “Get away from me!”

She started charging up electricity before Sally said: “Sandy, stop!”

Sandy looked up at the bronze giant which she hadn’t minded at all as her times with Darren flashed in front of her eyes as she had believe him to be dead. She could see it more clearly now. It was even leaner than the Alpha Big Daddies and its torso and head was more sculpted to look like the Venus of Milo or the Mona Lisa as the giant had been painted to have a soothing face rather than the growling steel underbelly of a whale protecting the Little Sisters. It did have large menacing metal hands, but it didn’t seem to carry any weapons. Come to think of it, while she was panicking and then looking on in horror as Darren snapped his own legs back in the right position after they had warped in all directions and ‘healed’ in all those twists, the giant hadn’t attacked them, had held Wyatt as he stumbled back in all his pain and confusion and pretty much stood there, watching with those yellow eyes, that now started to darken into a red shade, looking at Sandy as target waiting to strike first.

Sandy calmed down at last and the electricity disappeared from her hand as the giant calmed as well and took on its shade of yellow again.

“Can someone tell me what the hell is happening down there?” Eddie said from what was left of the balcony.

“This is the Protector of Daedalus Dominion,” Wyatt said as he leaned towards Sally, but she refused to be anywhere near him. Wyatt bowed his head as he continued: “It was cancelled because its Gatherers were cancelled. We were involved.”

“One day, Wyatt’s father came to Sandy’s father to ask for his help. Wyatt had been kidnapped by Fontaine’s men he said and he didn’t know what else to do. Eventually as it turned out Wyatt had been brought to the orphanage because with his mother having grown sicker and his dad losing his job, they could no longer take care of him. The orphanage had promised to look after him until his father could come back for him when he’d found a job, but it turned out to be a lie. I snuck into the orphanage without dad realizing while he was trying to negotiate with Fontaine and found Wyatt,” Darren said.

“They turned the both of us into Little Brothers, the slug implantation was a success and dad and I ‘went away for a while’ while dad was trying to figure out where I went. Eventually we escaped the control and the brainwashing and in the process showed that our Protector’s controlling system wasn’t effective. The bonding process only seemed to be enough for the Big Daddies and the Little Sisters, as the slug implantation caused us to be extremely violent and disobedient. Ironically, this Protector used pheromones in an effort to control us, the only Mona Momma ever made and locked away here,” Wyatt said. “And now Ryan is able to use a variant of those pheromones to control every normal splicer.”

“Except the two of you,” Ernie said as he jumped off the last step of the stairs they had went up to earlier today. “And now it has beckoned you to reforge the bond the lab workers engraved into your minds.”

The others, Eddie, Buck, Charlie and Claire had come down as well now.

“I… We couldn’t tell you that the slug was still inside us, that we weren’t human anymore and that we never would. Even now… The rage the slug induces in us as men is hard to control,” Darren said.

Sandy backed away even further and Darren lowered his head, giving her every reason to act like that towards him.

“Here in Daedalus Dominion, all the failed experiments lie, with the two of us with them,” Wyatt said. “We are the last Little Brothers. All the others died, the implementation process didn’t work or they went insane and had to be put down before any civilians were killed and Fontaine Futuristics was closed. Even in Rapture they don’t take brainwashing a child to go on a killing spree as the sweat of your brow.”

“But now you are…” Sandy said as she thought of how Lily had called Darren and by extension Wyatt. “Big Brothers.”

“Maybe now we will go insane despite our parents’ best efforts,” Wyatt said coldly.

The others kept their distance as the Mona Momma looked menacingly in their direction whenever they took as much as a breath.

“How did that thing, eh, she protect her Little Brothers?” Buck said as he didn’t see the Mona Momma hold any weapons.

“It turned out the pheromones were quite handy, but Fontaine couldn’t risk letting it use them on other people, as they could be robbed of their free will, cough cough, or worse, be turned against Ryan who would know what Fontaine was up to far too quickly with only one Mona Momma to use,” Wyatt said. “I’ve had a lot of time to understand our ‘mom’.”

He looked at the bronze giant which almost looked exactly like the art deco statues that adorned all of Rapture, with the divine form of both Venus and an all-soothing and protecting mother. The metal had been folded so she appeared to have long flowing hair painted gold and her face almost seemed human apart from the glowing eyes, comparable with Lily’s appearance. Nobody knew how she really looked as even now she was producing pheromones from the portholes on her sides and everyone seemed convinced she looked beautiful as an iron maiden. Her features could easily appear much more menacingly if anyone would come near its Little Brothers that had all grown up and so everyone remained frightened of the beautiful bronze giant that seemed close to a divine goddess towering above her worshippers.

Then Lily cried in her bag and the Mona Momma roared.

Any thoughts on what will come next?

Completed:

CHA-05: Teenage robot with organic skin starting war of sabotage and love.

My apologies for the delay, I had a lot of work AND I wrote myself into a corner. Now, it being possible in the canon isn't necessary, but it forces me to build on the Rapture world in new and unexpected ways, while still keeping consistency... and working towards a Bioshockian ending. Enjoy

Chapter XXXVIII: Escaping the iron hand, part 1

“Please please please, don’t do it!” Darren said as he stood in front of the Mona Momma and spread his arms.

Even with the pheromones compelling him to obey the Mona Momma, he wasn’t about to let it kill everyone.

Sandy tried soothing Lily, but her being so close to the Little Sister angered the Mona Momma even more.

Wyatt started up his last turret bot and hung it on his arm to be able to carry its heavy caliber weapon without breaking off his arm, even if he was a former Little Brother.

“You won’t harm her,” Wyatt said and readied himself.

The Mona Momma hesitated one moment. Then it reached behind its back for a large clawed hammer and held it over its head.

“Sandy, get Lily to go over there to Darren,” Sally said.

“What?” Sandy said.

“Trust me, quickly!” Sally said.

Wyatt and Darren looked into the red portholes of the Mona Momma and stared right back. So this was the end. At least they wouldn’t succumb to some Oedipus complex like Freud had studied not so long ago.

Suddenly small arms clenched to Darren’s leg and he looked down.

“Please don’t fight Mom and Brother,” Lily said as she winced.

Could she still cry with tears flowing, Darren wondered. If she did, she was about to as the Mona Momma readied its swing. The Little Sister still had a heart, or something quite like it. And so did the Mona Momma.

It lowered its hammer and offered its hand to the Little Sister who connected with the strange pheromones. Its Big Daddy connection had been broken. Her connection, Wyatt corrected himself. Lily seemed to almost purr like a kitten as she moved her head as the large but articulate metal hand of the Mona Momma caressed her hair.

“What is this, are they friends now or something?” Charlie whispered.

Sandy and Sally both nodded and shook their head at the same time.

Women, Ernie thought. Though we men aren’t so different either…

“Momma?” Lily chirped.

The Mona Momma nodded and bowed as her red portholes or ‘eyes’ became a soothing green. From so closeby, Wyatt could read something carved into its chestplate. In edged letters made by a man most certainly, it said ‘Katherina’.

Darren turned to the others and said:

“You can breathe now.”

Some of them took this quite literally as they heaved in the damp air of Daedalus Dominion as if it were their last.

“It’s friendly now… as long as you don’t come to close to Lily, or us,” Wyatt said. “But now, we have to think about how to escape the iron hand.”

“I thought you just said it was friendly!” Claire said a bit too loud and quickly hid behind Eddie as the Mona Momma looked in her direction, still holding her hammer. It even seemed to click, it was like Adelaide had never died.

“I am talking about Ryan and his tyranny, it is time we end it. We devise something against his pheromones, go up to his office, break it open and break him in half. And now we have the army to do just that,” Wyatt said as he gestured to the Mona Momma.

“Who cares, as long as we beat Ryan’s head to a bloody pulp!” Charlie said as he swung his bat with a permanent red crust on its end.

“I’m ready if you are,” Sally said and nodded to Wyatt.

“Me too,” Sandy said. That instantly got the rest aboard as well.

“This is a suicide mission,” Claire said. “Not even a mission really.”

“You’re welcome to stay here,” Wyatt said with a bit too wide smile.

A tremble shook everyone off their feet except the Mona Momma, Darren and Wyatt. As the other struggled to get up, Wyatt yelled: “We’ll gather up everything for the plan, you all get to the bathysphere, now!”

Wyatt and Darren ran off as Sandy and the others did as they said, with Lily following Sandy and the Mona Momma following after Lily, determined to save her from this wretched place. For some reason, with the lack of anything happening here, faint traces of her time as a normal mother sometimes resurfaced. She would protect this little girl as if, no, believing it to be her own.

“Anyone got Scout? You gotta deliver a message to them, so they take along the right vials for the antidote, anyone?” Ernie said.

“I got it,” Sally said. “What do you need me to tell them?”

As they ran, Ernie explained and as soon as Sally had memorized it, she went numb. Her body stayed behind as her mental form flew ahead. Ernie hadn’t thought this far through as they couldn’t wait for her to return to her body. He looked around and his suspicions seemed to be confirmed. Ryan was attempting to completely sever Daedalus Dominion from Rapture, the cliff, the bathysphere and them along with it. He had launched a barrage of missiles. They had to hurry. Ernie threw Sally over his shoulder and ran after the others.

They came to the bathysphere and everyone hurried to get inside. Buck hurriedly studied the air supply and other technical stuff by instinct and Ernie helped him as well when he had put down Sally next to Claire, who wasn’t too happy about having to hold her upright as Sally’s body leaned on her frail and spoiled shoulder.

Sandy stepped into the bathysphere and reached out for Lily as the Little Sister did the same, but the Mona Momma roared and grabbed Lily. She put her in a gap in her sides and the others quickly closed the bathysphere. Before Sandy could do anything, they were trying to disconnect the bathysphere. Darren. Wyatt. They were still behind as the Mona Momma loomed over their fragile shell that separated them from ice cold ocean water with the pressure of tons of concrete.

Last edited by Scriptor Scorpio; 22nd March 2013 at 11:35 PM.

Completed:

CHA-05: Teenage robot with organic skin starting war of sabotage and love.

Meanwhile Darren and Wyatt made their way back to the labs. They had to get the supplies before all of the district came falling down. Easier said than done as they had to constantly dodge debris as they made their way through the flooded inner dome. They had to go much faster, unlock all their ADAM regenerating capabilities even if their adult body couldn’t be healed fast enough to be quite as indestructible as a Little Sister or even a Big Daddy. And now their Mona Momma wasn’t around to protect them.

“How much stuff do you think we can carry?” Wyatt said as he gasped for air, but kept going.

“I don’t know, but we have to assume everything, because we’re going to need everyt…” Darren said as he jumped forward as he saw the water ripple.

Within an instant a disgusting green creature jumped out of the water covered in foam and lunged at Darren, narrowly missed and dived back into another basin.

“I don’t think so, that was a man!” Wyatt said looking back for a moment. “I knew that thing from the balcony had buddies, but damn it, why.”

“Aaaaaaah… No mommy to protect the… ADAM…” a voice whispered just above water, but its head was nowhere to be seen.

“Aquatic splicers, great,” Wyatt said as he quickened his already superhuman pace.

In less adrenalin-fueled moments, he would guess that the isolated environment and experimental plasmid and gene tonics cocktails had caused trapped splicers to mutate and eventually adapt to aquatic life in the basins, which were under a lot less pressure than the water outside which had many stacks above it. But now wasn’t the time for pensive science, but destructive empiric methods. That’s what he called it in his mind, but what came out of his mouth was more in the line of: “Graaaaaah!”

He struck to his side as an aquatic splicer came to land and immediately received a branding as a greeting and screaming it fell back into the basin as the blue flashes of electricity disappeared into the dark deep waters.

Darren followed his example as he charged his arm while still running, breathing heavily then slit over the border between two basins, a former wall between two markets maybe, and dipped into the water unleashing the deadly power of a former Little Brother. Immediately ten more aquatic splicers jumped up from the other basins.

“Sh*t,” Darren said as he ran.

Wyatt had powered up the turret he had affixed to his arm and began firing upon the splicers in front of him to clear a path for the both of them. He looked back to see if he could help Darren and saw three splicers lunging for him.

“Darren!” he yelled.

‘Darren’ flashed as the three splicers dove through and they realized too late it was a decoy he had projected before from a short distance away Darren threw a hypnotize polyp and gained control of one of the splicers, who immediately jumped and turned on the others. Darren ordered it to ‘attack’ upon which it lunged with elongated jaws and dug its teeth into its former allies, ripping their slimy flesh apart. Disgusted Darren turned away and kept running. He hurriedly attached his ADAM procuring device to his wrist and without thinking, he stuck its tube in his arm. If his slug wouldn’t heal him fast enough, other people would. Anything so Sandy and the others would survive.

Finally, they had arrived at the stairs and they pushed themselves off of the wall and up to go even faster as the green monstrosities were catching up and Darren’s connection to his minion had broken up. The others had put their teeth in the minion no doubt. He had chills as he thought: no worries, I can get another one. These were once people, but hope was long lost for them even more than for the pheromone blasted remainder population of Rapture. He had to persist, there was no other way.

Wyatt got up to the top of the stairs and paused for a moment as he tossed a slight smile at Darren.

“What is it?” Darren said as he looked at the branded message in the wall.

A message from Sally with all the supplies Ernie wanted them to get. Well done Sally, even if I can’t see you, Wyatt thought.

“You got it? Then let’s go,” Darren said.

“Yeah yeah, remember the mission,” Wyatt mused as he followed after Darren. “I got an idea… go to the divers’ lockers and get as much stuff as possible. I’ll meet you there with the supplies.”

Darren shook his head, not quite getting what Wyatt had in mind but he gestured he heard it and went off to the lockers. A giant stream of water jetted out of the wall and knocked him off his feet. As he struggled to get up, he heard the cries of another pack of aquatic splicers. The water also brought him one of the pieces from a diver’s suit. Though a bit dinged, it could still work so he put the piece on his knee and darted back off towards the lockers, where the cries were coming from.

Wyatt loaded every bottle and sample in a bag and remembering his plan put some metal pots around it and burned them together with a few well aimed and concentrated electrobolts. That had to do it, the thought. He bent his knees a bit when he put the load on his back, but it was a good fit and he didn’t collapse right away, so that certainly was a good sign. He felt the adrenaline being added to through the ADAM he’d ingested from a few dirty vials and blinked as the slug refined it. Thanks… thing, he thought before running towards the hallway close to the labs and then towards the lockers. Grinding his teeth he also electro-welded a few flat pieces of metal to his upper arms and rounded the corner.

He watched as Darren struck the aquatic splicer right in the heart with his needle and pushed the piston until the splicer succumbed to its massive ADAM and blood loss and shriveled to its death before it was tossed aside and fell next to its two brethren who were already torn to shreds. Darren couldn’t help but smile as the ADAM gave him new strength, but looked down in something deeper than shame as he saw Wyatt and showed his comrade all the diver suits that had been left behind.

“What do you need?” Darren said.

“Everything,” Wyatt said.

The water had risen to above their knees and the diver suit parts were much easier to push forth in ‘schools’ of metallic fish of sorts. Looking at each other, Wyatt and Darren immediately started welding more parts to themselves. They had a feeling they were going to need these diving suits far more quicker than they could put them on in one piece while running for their life…

To be continued.

Last edited by Scriptor Scorpio; 22nd March 2013 at 11:36 PM.

Completed:

CHA-05: Teenage robot with organic skin starting war of sabotage and love.

Zero replies, 5k+ views... Although I am intending to finish this 100+ A4 pages story AND end it as skillfully and interesting as possible,
that sure puzzles me... Anyway, as per my usual manners, I apologize for the delay and I'm guessing by how I went over it for the length of that delay,
it was worth the wait. Enjoy.

Chapter XL: Escaping the iron hand: part 3

“You won’t leave this place alive…” a crackling voice whispered.

Darren and Wyatt looked up as the owner of the voice came around the corner with many of its foul brethren following. Bent over like a feral creature that had renounced its humanity long ago, they gazed at the former Little Brothers with a dripping hunger. A hunger for ADAM, or simply fresh flesh that wasn’t covered with slime or scales. They licked their sharp teeth as they eyed their prize. And the annoying armor they were putting on.

“Get them!” the aquatic splicer snarled.

The horde charged at the two friends and went down on all fours as they picked up speed, their yellow eyes popping as their veins swelled up from the pure ADAM.

Darren nodded at Wyatt who picked up another part of a boot, flash fused it to his shoe, gestured at the diver suits parts and launched them through the water with a great telekinetic force as the both of them charged at the splicers and each punched one squarely in the gut and before their first victim could recuperate and vomit from the sickening blow, both young men charged their fists with electricity and tossed them aside like rag dolls. Two kills, a dozen to go.

Some of the splicers jumped on the ceiling and latched on with their claws and slippery webbed feet and screamed at Darren and Wyatt as they approached them like mercilessly hunting spiders.

“I’ll handle them,” Wyatt said and held up his turret arm, pulled a lever while feeding it extra juice and mowed down the first two splicers that came just a bit too close. Wyatt bared his teeth at the other splicers as he charged his turret again before he unleashed a deadly rain of shocking bullets.

Darren moved up from behind him with a chest piece he’d hurriedly put on and threw a hypnotize polyp like a rotten tomato in the face of another splicer who yelped before he fell on his knees and the stench of the pheromones spread across his skin. He was a willing slave for as long as he was still alive… Then the pack leader gutted the slave like a fish and grinned at Darren. The latter grinned as well as he had held another polyp behind his back, widened his stance and threw the thing like a curve ball and the polyp exploded into a million pieces as the sickening green fog covered the pack leader as he let out his final curse with something reminiscent of a human voice. Then the pack jumped on him as he sprang out his claws and jabbed in all directions.

Let them kill themselves or each other so I don’t have to, Darren thought.

Wyatt only had the choice of letting his turret fire and eviscerate his enemies as he blocked an incoming flurry of deadly needles from an aquatic splicer that hung back. His ADAM slug would make sure he didn’t die right away, but…

“I don’t feel like being sleepy right now,” Wyatt said before he turned one of the needles around and flung it into the poisonous fiend’s neck, dropping it from the ceiling.

“We gotta go,” Darren said as he watched from a distance splicers running at a decoy of his before zapping them.

He stretched his arm which was now fully armored through fusing the segments separately to his skin. He would be a little less mobile, but it made him much more resilient. Wyatt looked at him and at himself as he struck to his side and punched a splicer’s teeth into its skull before he fused two shoulder pieces onto his arm and didn’t even flinch.

“Okay, the big one-two finale on three. One, two…” Wyatt said as he clung onto the wall and stuck his other unarmored hand into the water and unleashed the highest voltage he could bear himself without fainting.

Darren did the same from his end and the two of them trapped the remaining splicers in a quite literal death trap. For a few moments the water still arced with blue crackling lightning and then it was dead silent. Darren nodded at Wyatt, they released themselves from the corridor’s walls and sprinted through the water, Wyatt pulling along the last pieces of the diver suits as they rushed for the exit. They were approaching the balcony fast, but where they ended up if they kept running like this was of little concern compared to the rumbling that could be heard once again above their heads. What loomed above, were metal arches not bending, but slowly buckling under the damage that Ryan’s weapons did. The screeching sound was a rare one that few people ever lived through to tell the tale: the sound of metal structures brushing against each other as their connections had snapped apart. The place came crashing down, not in a matter of minutes, but seconds.

Without wasting any more words, Wyatt jumped off the balcony and dove head first into the water basin with Darren right behind him as the inner dome came crashing down. Wyatt had never thought about it before, but seeing as how Daedalus Dominion had crumbled a bit before when Icarus Tower collapsed, it was only fitting it now fell down in its entirety. But would they be trapped in a deadly labyrinth?

“Get back, get back now!” Sandy yelled.

The bathysphere had detached from Daedalus Dominion just before it collapsed under what looked like several torpedo strikes launched from the center of Rapture. Ernie had no other choice but to close the door and launch as the Mona Momma disappeared in the falling rubble with Lily and any chances of Wyatt and Darren were nullified as the corridor was blocked off. That didn’t stop Sandy and Sally from almost tearing Ernie apart as he refused to turn back around.

“There is no way, we had no choice! I… I don’t even know how to control this thing, Wyatt did…” Ernie said.

Hearing Wyatt’s name, Sally unexpectedly let go of Ernie’s arm, sat down and covered her face. Sandy let go as well, but then went to stand by the window as she saw Daedalus Dominion being devoured by the ocean. The stoic balance of nature didn’t raise her anger, Ryan’s disturbed power mongering did.

“Can you steer us towards Ryan?” Sandy asked.

“Wait… we’re going after him, seriously?” Charlie said as he tightened his hand into a fist. Finally.

“If we can get there. Can you do it?” Sandy said to Ernie.

“I’ll try,” Ernie said as he turned to the control panel and gestured to Buck how the heck they were going to do this. They were pretty sure that oxygen meter wouldn’t be that high forever… Was it even high?

Wyatt turned to see at the monstrosity that had its long grey arm finally wrapped around his abdomen and grinning at him with a bald scaly head like a bodyguard hung on ADAM that went swimming for weeks and turned into this leviathan; whose only somewhat human feature seemed to be its head. It had try to devour him and Sally before. Would he succeed now as Wyatt and Darren floated in the dark ocean water with debris falling all around them? Wyatt breathed into his helmet he had ever so hurriedly put on and quickly decided he wouldn’t go down without a fight. He put his hand’s tips onto the freakishly long scaly arm and fired another shock towards the leviathan man. Not waiting for the weakened signal to reach the other end of the arm as it tightened its grip on him, he rammed his turret arm into the green deformed and bony tentacle and mowed it into very tiny pieces very quickly.

Darren tried to throw a polyp, but the water pressure was ever increasing and it was simply too dense to begin with and he looked at Wyatt’s helmet, as it wasn’t really transparent, but Wyatt got the hint. He felt his hand ever more deforming and pulsing with throbbing veins just before he yanked on the polyp with all his might and launched it into the leviathan man, giving Wyatt just enough time to escape its crushing grasp and watch the leviathan man wrinkling all over as his arm flailed about, missing him by a water droplet. Then Darren gestured at the behemoth, with the little control he had through the diluted pheromones. It did seem to work however and as the leviathan man calmed down as the soothing spell of obedience fell over him, Darren knew it was limited and soon the spell would fall and they would be slain. He focused all his EVE he had produced and startled the obedient beast man as he felt his arm coming towards him, resting on his chest then wrapping itself around his neck and feeling his own tight grip for the first and only time as his neck crumbled under the might of his own monstrous arm.

Darren felt something changing and he swam as fast as he could towards the monster before it regained its free will. Wyatt shouted inside his helmet that he couldn’t afford this risk, that they had to get out of here right now, but Darren didn’t hear him. The yellow eyes became darker again as the creature’s pupils widened and it became aware of what Darren had tried to do to him. He roared at Darren as bubbles encircled the gills in his neck before the latter struck him in the heart with his rusty needle and drained all its ADAM and absorbing and thus taking it for himself. The creature’s lights went out and Darren whispered: “Ziz.”

Then the metal arches fell on top of him and Wyatt.

Completed:

CHA-05: Teenage robot with organic skin starting war of sabotage and love.

He looked out of the window and saw Rapture beckoning in the distance. Having arrived at his young age as he did, he’d come to consider it as his home, even now that it had turned into such a wretched hive, only filling him with home-sick sorrow.

“If we manage to get this thing moving, we can try to dock somewhere. I doubt Talos Trappings is an option,” Ernie said.

All the splicers, all the pheromones were there. And Addie.

“If we get it moving,” Sandy said as she held her throat. Was she just imagining feeling light-headed or…

Then they all heard the humming. It was faint and moved itself in the water, but they quickly saw it through the porthole. It was a missile heading straight for them.

“Save the plane, I mean, save the bathysphere Sally!” Sandy yelled.

Sally immediately spread her arms, focused and tried to form a shield around the entire bathysphere, but she had never spread it out that much.

“I can’t, I can’t!” she said as she struggled.

The missile hit and they fell off their feet, bumping into each other before they got up. They braced themselves as another attack had to be incoming. Charlie looked over to the hull where the missile had impacted and water was rushing in at an increasingly higher rate.

“We’re dead,” Charlie said.

“No we’re not, we’re going to plug it right now,” Eddie said.

He snapped his fingers and a candescent cloud appeared from them and melted the metal and evaporated the water as the hull breach was fused away. For a few seconds at least.

Ernie looked out of the porthole for the next missile even before he heard the humming. The next closest porthole was also the direction the first missile had come from. Moving themselves to another one somehow, would take far too long. A hand surrounded by a bloody red cloud struck against the glass and a sinister diving helmet appeared behind it. Ernie screamed as he fell over backwards thinking this was the end.

The radio; that was supplied per standard in every bathysphere, train and other forms of transportation in case something went wrong on the bottom of the ocean; crackled and Sally ran over to adjust it. Was it their death sentence Ryan was announcing now that whatever scared Ernie out of his mind had arrived to finish them off?

“S-Saaandy, can you hear me?” it sounded.

“Darren, is that you?” Sandy said surprisingly calm.

Immediately afterwards her cheeks ran red and she dashed over to the radio to answer.

“Darren is that you, are you alright and Wyatt as well?” she said.

“Look out the window and see for yourself,” Darren said.

Ernie looked over to Sandy, still awe-struck and on his back lying on Claire who was too busy wimpering silently in pain to say anything. Eddie would help her up in a moment… right?

Sandy dashed over to the porthole again and saw two people in diver suits, one with a freakishly long needle on their wrist and another with a turret attached to it. Their helmets glowed with a green and yellow light emanating from their porthole respectively, but they were far too thin to be Big Daddies, but nonetheless very dangerous if they weren’t on their side. Darren and Wyatt, former Little Brothers might’ve escaped Daedalus Dominion which was crumbling behind them sighing its last breath. But they couldn’t have without that slug that remained in their stomach, flooding their systems with ADAM. Behind them the Mona Mommy appeared, now that she had finally found a way to escape the dome through the debris of a thousand missiles. From a hole were Little Brothers were meant to hide as a twisted form of a live cannonball, Lily appeared, suffering little ill effects from the immense pressure and cold. She waved at Sandy, then gestured at Darren and Wyatt and mouthed something. You couldn’t hear anything, but Sandy knew what she said.

Tears ran from Sandy’s eyes knowing he was okay as Wyatt held up a secured metal casket holding all the supplies. It was a bit dented, but otherwise fine.

Sally came up to the porthole, looked at Wyatt and simply waved once with a faint smile. After all those heavy emotions, a calm and serene state was a welcome thing to embrace. Then Ernie picked up the radio and said:

“Wyatt, I don’t know if you can hear me, but they’re firing missiles at us and we’re running low on oxygen, I think.”

It was quiet for a few moments. Then it sounded:

“I was afraid that might happen. Whatever the remaining amount of oxygen it is, we can’t do anything about it other than docking as quickly as possible. We’ll guide you to the nearest one.”

“And the missiles?” Ernie said.

“Leave them to us,” Wyatt said.

Ernie heard the humming quite clearly through the transmission, as the sending end in Wyatt’s helmet was separated by far less metal from the ocean water. Another missile. The Mona Momma slowly rose up, held out her humongous hammer and struck forward as the missile blasted apart on it and the small metal fragments sank to the dark bottom of the ocean.

A few seconds later, an entire barrage of missiles came flying from the nearest docking port. Wyatt held up his hand and channeled his powers through the tips in the gloves so his telekinetic field wasn’t hampered by a metal wall like Sally’s powers… and his field was much stronger as he kept sustaining it and missile after missile got deflected by it.

Pondering they were now in water, Darren first took a hypnotize polyp, charged it with Electrobolt and then threw it at a missile, overloading it and making it explode in a rather strange-looking underwater blast. There was no time to admire the scenery, as they were moving ever closer to the docking port and the missile firing frequency increased dramatically as a result. Ryan was willing to empty his entire arsenal just to stop some younglings he deemed little brats. Then again, there were three Big problems all intent on killing him now.

A deflected missile made a full 180 and hit the docking port, destroying one of the supportive arches. Ernie knowing he had to move or talk as little as possible to preserve oxygen, nonetheless yelled into the radio:

There are going to be some delays, as during the week I don't have much time and I want to make sure this story gets the end it deserves. I'm overthinking making a Bioshock fanfic about what the next Bioshock would be, but I'll see if I post it here... since nobody replies, I think this isn't so interesting to people, but at least I'll make sure I persist and finish what I started.

Chapter XLII: Boisterous Blackmail

“Why, that’s an idea,” Wyatt said.

“What, how?!” Ernie said.

“Ryan, I know you can hear me. If you don’t let us dock, we destroy this port,” Wyatt said. “Our friends will die without that port, but we will flood this district and those after it until we get you. And whatever defenses you have, they won’t protect you and we won’t run out of oxygen or strength until we have killed you.”

The radio remained silent. The humming stopped as well. The bathysphere shook as the Mona Momma moved the bathysphere into the docking port. It opened and Sandy and the others stepped out.

“You… blackmailed Andrew Ryan?” Sandy said to Wyatt who’d come in through the service entrance along with Darren. The Mona Momma and Lily would find another entrance soon.

“Maybe I did… but now,” Wyatt said as he tore open the metal casket around the supplies with his pneumatic claws belonging to his former turret, “we have to hurry.”

“Flood that entrance with the will-weakening gas. Now,” Ryan said.

The gas flooded in through the vents and obscured the security system’s feeds. All Ryan got was static and blurry images, but soon he could discern several humanly shapes standing up and then just staring in front of them as it was clear they weren’t moving at all.

Excellent, now he would get rid of these perpetuating looters once and for all.

“Kill one another after you’ve killed the divers. Let the last one who remains kill him or herself,” Ryan said.

That would be the end of it, he thought until he saw a glimmer. There was some static and then the signal got through to Ryan’s system:

“Not today Ryan. We got some surprises for you and they might… shock you.”

Ryan looked up at the monitor and saw nine helmeted young men and women, two who were in full diver suits and one of the latter holding her arm at the camera he was observing them with. The next moment a shot of blue flashed and took it out. They were coming for him, for his blood.

“I’ll be waiting, amateur engineer,” Ryan said.

The file he acquired ascertained that it was no one else but Wyatt Daniels, an engineering prodigy that was still quite young and inexperienced. But Ryan’s engineering skills are what gave him the means to build Rapture and protect himself and his legacy. Or destroy it.

“Citizens of Rapture, the parasites have come to destroy me and our beautiful city along with it. Do not let them. Come to Rapture Central Control to defend your city!” Ryan said.

The message was repeated several times throughout all of Rapture, including the docking port. Within minutes, a pheromone-controlled horde of splicers akin to a flood would drown Sandy and the others so quickly after escaping the bathysphere before they would have suffocated. Ryan wouldn’t let them go now with the bathysphere, they would never reach the surface… unless they killed Ryan.

“Everyone knows what we have to do?” Wyatt said through his yellow-lit helmet.

Everyone nodded and took their weapons from their bags. It was time to end this.

The docking port had a cabinet which contained a map with emergency corridors which could be accessed in the case of a flood or a collapse, but right now they would use them to head to Ryan’s office within hours.

“We will concoct something against the pheromones with what you’ve given us Wyatt, Darren,” Buck said.

The look in his eyes could only be described as pure, undistilled genius or the mad ADAM cells replacing his brain with all the super cells the numerous Brain Boosts were supposed to give him.

“Can you do it along the way?” Wyatt asked.

His voice sounded distant and threatening as it resonated in the metal helmet.

“We’ll do our best,” Buck said.

Wyatt nodded, held up the map and started running to the first airlock to try to pry it open with his pneumatic jaws. Darren and the other men quickly came to his aid. Ernie came up to the airlock as well.

“Eh er…” Ernie said as he struggled to think and pull on the airlock at the same time. “It was, peroxide, no… that one, the red container, I think.”

In a minute or two, they got the airlock open and proceeded.

Caught between the lock and the holed wall surrounding it, a fresh rose laid and Eddie picked it up. He presented it to Claire.

“What’s this?” she said.

“A rose for you,” he said and attached it to her dress.

Claire simply looked down and said:

“Let’s just go alright?”

Eddie nodded and gestured for her to go first through the airlock while the others had ran through already. After Eddie went through, he closed the airlock and ran to catch up with the others. He tried to remember what date it was before he saw a Gatherer’s Garden selling plasmids and tonics. He wondered if…

A few minutes later, Eddie arrived at the last airlock to the next area.

“What was keeping you?” Wyatt said annoyed, though you could hardly notice through the yellow-lit porthole.

With his cleft jaw, hefty physique and him holding a bloody wrench, it wasn’t that difficult for Eddie to shut Charlie up.

Wyatt however knew full well by now how powerful he was as a Big Brother and pointed at Eddie saying:

“Next time, we’re leaving you behind.”

He looked over to Sally who seemed quite uncomfortable with his behavior, but he turned around unshaken by how she looked at him. They were going to kill Ryan and get everyone out, that was all that mattered.

“The door’s opening,” Darren said.

“Good. How’s Lily doing?” Wyatt asked.

“Good, she’s resting,” Darren said as he gestured to his bag.

“Then let’s continue. I have a feeling we’ll be needing ADAM, a lot of ADAM,” Wyatt said.

Completed:

CHA-05: Teenage robot with organic skin starting war of sabotage and love.

“If I didn't care more than words can say
If I didn't care would I feel this way?
If this isn't love then why do I thrill?
And what makes my head go 'round and 'round
While my heart stands still?

If I didn't care would it be the same?
Would my ev'ry prayer begin and end with just your name?
And would I be sure that this is love beyond compare?
Would all this be true if I didn't care for you?”

Claire sang the song quietly so nobody would hear. It was her favorite song, one from topside that her father had put on countless times just for her. She missed her father. Now she sang the song to remember all that had died and she had cared about.

They had come to a spot where they could rest. There were many alcoves hidden in the dark, but nobody seemed to be lurking there. Ryan had locked off this corridor leading directly to his office in an attempt to stop Sandy and the others and they took the temporary setback as a way to rest and think their final thoughts before the inevitable would follow.

The next morning the group was awakened by a loud bellowing roar. They immediately got up, not having caught much sleep as their uneasy thoughts had largely kept them from closing their eyes for more than a few minutes. They looked up as they saw the Mona Momma. She had finally found a way to them, just in time for the final battle. Darren and Wyatt quickly put on their helmets and with their green and yellow glow they nodded to the Mona Momma and she nodded to them. Sandy took over the bag holding Lily and readied herself. She took out Addies oversized revolver and spun its cylinder as she looked to Wyatt who had modified it. He silently hoped it would keep her alive.

Wyatt gestured to the door and the Mona Momma got her spiked hammer from her back before slamming it and herself into the door that Ryan had closed. A moment later, the door was gone.

“Charge!” Sandy yelled through a helmet like everyone was wearing.

They ran through the corridors, passing vending machines and all kinds of rubble as they made their way to their target. Security cameras focused their red gaze on the group very quickly and dispatched a buzzing squad of security bots that wasted no time to begin shooting their machine guns at Sandy and the others.

“Big mistake Ryan,” Wyatt said as he zapped down a security bot and hacked it within a few seconds, sending it against their brethren.

They heard the cries long before they saw them, but quite soon the deformed faces of Ryan’s pheromone controlled splicer mob popped around the next corridor and charged at the group. Wyatt sent the security bots to meet them and gun them down as he crushed the skull of a splicer in his pneumatic claws. Darren hypnotized a splicer into fighting for him and dug his ADAM needle deep into another splicer to heal himself while a third splicer was trying to ram him into death. It didn’t quite work. Darren’s helmet glowed with a purple hue and Wyatt’s with a red one as they mowed down more and more splicers. They probably knew some of these people… but their suffering wouldn’t end if Ryan lived and controlled them. That was all that mattered.

Or did it?

Eddie and Ernie rammed the splicers they were holding into each other and created an explosion by combining their incinerate and sonic boom. Buck launched insect swarms to distract the splicers as his research camera spit out bonuses to use against them. Then, they’d arrived in the hallway to the office. Several pillars made it seem high and righteous, apart from the fact that on almost every single one, those who struggled against Ryan’s corrupt regime were speared against the wall and burned and tortured beyond recognition.

“That bastard,” Darren said.

The others stepped in as well as they wrestled with the remaining splicers. Sandy froze them, burned them and zapped them until they stayed down. They had lost all sense of self-preservation as they didn’t care that the Mona Momma nailed them with her spiked hammer, they just went on railing as if they weren’t suffering critical internal injuries, until eventually reality caught up to them and they succumbed to it. Claire stumbled as she hid behind Eddie and the Mona Momma to avoid getting torn to shreds and Eddie took quite a few shots trying to protect her. Charlie bashed in every head he found sticking out with his metal bat and Sally did something similar with her crossbow as the heads she hit exploded impacting with the incendiary arrows.

“It’s a magnetic lock, powered by the volcanic vents…” Wyatt said as he approached the one obstacle to Ryan’s office. “It always gets its juice… How do I disable this thing if I can’t cut the power or rewire the mechanism? Damn it, there’s a reason Ryan made Rapture and not someone else.”

Wyatt looked over to what seemed to be the body of Bill McDonagh or what was left of it. He was part of Ryan’s inner circle, his primary contractor, but a good man through and through. It being impaled on the pillar it was on and disgraced like that was a disgusting thing to behold.

“I’ll get an idea soon, hold them off,” Wyatt said to Darren.

The Mona Momma opened several small openings in its armor as her own pheromones were released to appease the splicers and make them turn on one another. Then they heard the roars.

“You might break my lock, mister Daniels, but I won’t let you. Not even a Big Brother pair and that failed experiment will hold long against my bronze knights,” Ryan said.

Then they stormed in. Bouncers and Rosies, one half holding a giant drill, the other an oversized rivet gun. And there was more than a dozen of them, carrying their Little Sisters on their backs as Ryan had summoned them out of the blue. This had to end now and everything could and would be sacrificed. Who sent these people, who supplied them with such… persistence.

The Big Daddies chopped through the appeased splicers with ease and Buck quickly unleashed insect swarms to distract them along with Wyatt’s turned squad of security bots buzzing around the Big Daddies like measly, but annoying flies. That bought them maybe a few seconds of extra time before the sheer bronze force would put them all down. Buck aimed and focused his research camera at every single Big Daddy as he gathered data and that was made into several tonics that he flung around to anyone who could catch it and inject it.

“Focus on one of them at a time, use all your plasmids,” Sandy said as she injected her arm with an EVE hypo that Darren had just produced from his slug.

What had they become? She looked at her hand as frozen bits seemed to flake off or in fact her entire arm was turning into ice as she charged and then blasted the first Big Daddy with the cold touch of winter.

“Armor-piercing rounds, it’s now or never!” Ernie said as he himself fired his grenade launcher to bring down other Big Daddies.

One after the other they fell down, their Little Sisters tumbling off their back and looking confused at the motionless body of their protector, then sobbing. Their cries made Lily move around in her bag as Sandy said:

“Not now, ssssh, keep still.”

She proceeded to fire armor-piercing round after round at the head of the Big Daddies as they crept closer to the magnetic lock and closed the group in. Eddie was knocked down and shortly afterwards a Bouncer ran his drill through his abdomen before moving on to Ernie who launched sonic boom after sonic boom to keep the horrific bloody thing away from him. Claire’s face flashed into a pale terror and kneeled down with Eddie, holding his bloody hand as he coughed some of it into her face.

“I-I’m so sorry, I’m so sorry, I couldn’t, hngh…” Eddie said as he struggled to breath with both lungs punctured. Blood was rushing in quickly and he coughed up more blood until the air ran out. “Heeeere…”

He said as he handed Claire a pouch in which there was a wrench lurker tonic. In his other hand lay his wrench so Claire took it before turning to him to say something, anything. But the light had gone out of his eyes, he stopped breathing.

Completed:

CHA-05: Teenage robot with organic skin starting war of sabotage and love.

“Give me just a moment, to find a way to open this lock, if I could just…” Wyatt said.

“Eddie, he’s… gone…” Claire called out to the others.

“Sterling? Darn it,” Darren said.

“We knew there were gonna be casualities, cover me while I…” Wyatt said before bullets started whizzing around his ears. “Not gonna stop me, I regenerate. Darren, cover my back.”

Darren looked at him while Wyatt was busy with the lock. Ryan didn’t seem to have any comments left, but his Big Daddies did more than enough of the talking, bellowing low, guttural roars as they charged into a splicer Darren had hypnotized, impaling the woman on his drill and then carelessly tossing it aside. Darren’s helmet’s purple shine distracted the Big Daddy for a moment, before his portholes glowed red and he charged at his next victim, Darren. The latter struck the tin man with an electrobolt and started charging his hypnotize plasmid as the Big Daddy recuperated. A Little Sister had appeared beneath him and was healing the bronze brute. That would make the fight much more difficult, but it did give him time to…

“Well, nothing ventured, nothing gained,” Darren said and threw a supercharged hypnotize polyp at the Big Daddy, who seemed to shrug it off.

Then its portholes glowed green and it nodded its head at Darren before charging into his brethren, impaling some with the rivets from his oversized gun. Sandy watched as the hypnotized Big Daddy’s Little Sister ran to a vent and crawled in it, aided by another Little Sister. Ryan was keen on protecting his investments.

Ernie kept another Big Daddy at bay with a grenade launcher barrage as Buck used Houdini to become invisible, sneak past the main row of Big Daddies and then launch Insect swarms to distract them, enabling Charlie to land hits, Sally to line up headshots and pull the trigger on her crossbow and Sandy sustaining the distraction while she also rained down fire, lightning and icy death on their enemies as she struggled to keep herself stocked with EVE.

Darren’s decoys got blasted apart seconds after he placed them, so he started zapping the Big Daddy that was shooting rivets into Ernie. They couldn’t lose any more people, but then a rivet drilled through his diving armor suit and he found himself bleeding. Soon more rivets got through and his armor was pelted by the many attacks from the Big Daddies, his slug alone wouldn’t cover it, not now he was an adult. He remembered how whenever he scratched his knees stumbling on the pavement and he went to his mother to patch up the wound, only to discover it had already healed. When he broke his leg one day, it had to be reset countless times until it healed in the right position. And whatever his mother and Sandy’s father did, he kept hungering for ADAM… Looking back at it, he never quite got how they managed to hide his secret from the other high standing people in their inner circle or Sandy for that matter.

Darrn quickly jolted back as Big Daddy charged past him and at the Mona Momma before the two giants started bashing each other’s head in, moaning and roaring as they did.

“I’m sorry,” they seemed to say.

Why did he understand them? He looked at Wyatt, but he was too busy adjusting his turret arm with his electrobolt. Did they brainwash him to understand the commands of his Big caretaker when he was a Little Brother, instructions to gather, drink and follow? It seemed logical. But there was something else. Then the Big Daddy punched its drill clear through the Mona Momma’s abdomen as she fell on her knees and moaned. She struck her murderer with her hammer as her breastplate revealed a name. Katherina.

“Mother…” Darren said before he sprinted towards the two, amidst all the turmoil.

He dodged lunge after lunge as he tossed around lightning and polyps before he arrived where the two beings laid, as if in an embrace of lovers, parents. Darren pulled on the helmet of the Big Daddy with all his might and noticed a crooked smile on the deformed face beneath. Sandy’s father, Ferris Fawl. Ryan had turned them into these monstrosities, his own mother… had ultimately sacrified herself to know the secret to curing him. Why was she moved to Daedalus Dominion? To replace the warden there, to keep the aquatic splicers from coming to Rapture? Or was it all a sick joke to make sure when Darren and Sandy found out, they suffered. Sandy couldn’t know this. Sandy would never know. Because…

“I I can’t find it, I don’t have the right equipment, even if we head down to Hephaestus, they’ll hunt us, they…” Wyatt said. “I doomed us all.”

“Mister Daniels, let me tell you before you die… this wouldn’t have gone any other way. My system is perfect and you will never find its weakness. Go to the core if you will, you won’t find your answer, because you’ll be long dead before your plot comes to fruition, just like all the others’ plans, those who have tried in vain. Goodbye, Mister Daniels,” Ryan said as more pheromones riled up the Big Daddies.

“Darren… we have to run,” Wyatt said.

Darren looked over to the others just before a rivet struck Sally’s stomach and made her stumble as blood streamed from the rivet’s tip.

“Sally! Get her out of here, we’ll hold them off,” Wyatt said as he jumped away from the lock and abandoning any plans about unlocking it and pulled a spear from the wall with telekinesis before launching it into a Big Daddy’s knee.

Darren nodded at Sandy and then vanished revealing himself to be a decoy. He couldn’t look at her now, not anymore.

“Darren, Wyatt! We stick together. We’ll find a way, if you don’t make it, none of us will!” Sandy yelled.

“Take her to safety, keep her alive, don’t let me force you,” Wyatt said. He zapped a Big Daddy, but it wouldn’t falter and hit him square in the stomach. “Run.”

“And lock off the entrances,” Darren yelled from somewhere.

Sandy tried to cry, but she didn’t have any tears left before she shouldered Sally and followed Claire to the lock. Buck and Ernie covered their backs with grenades and insect swarms as the Big Daddies swarmed the lock. And Darren and Wyatt.

“Good… bye,” Sally muttered as she struggled to stay conscious.

Lily repeated what she said before she fell asleep in the bag on Sandy’s back.

Charlie ran and slid through the opening and nodded to Claire as they eyed the mechanisms, before hitting them with his bat and her wrench, formerly Eddie’s wrench. The lock closed before the Big Daddy got through.

Six months later…

“Here’s my formula,” Ernie said. “Now can you get us out of here?”

“Hm,” Leo Hartwig said studying the rag with scribbles on it Ernie gave him. “Okay then, but only because I like you. There’s a service hatch linking Pauper’s Drop and the maintenance tunnels for the Atlantic Express. If you can get in there and they’re not flooded by now, you might be able to reach your destination. Best of luck though.”

Sally looked as she held her flat stomach. It was stitched back together, but it held. She had lived. But Wyatt hadn’t. Now they were heading for their last, desperate escape route. Ryan hadn’t perceived them as a threat, as they were in Pauper’s Drop, her home and that of many poor people that had lost all hope. And were nothing near a threat. She guessed that fit them.

Ernie approached the others.

“I have a way out of here, let’s go before Ryan smells a rat. No one has come so close for a long time, including us,” Ernie said.

“Okay, let’s go,” Sandy said as she held her own stomach. Her belly had grown considerably and her movement was quite impaired now. She only hoped the ADAM wouldn’t horribly disfigure it. A lot.

“We’ll protect your baby whatever it takes,” Sally said as she laid her hand on her belly as well.

“Thank you,” Sandy said.

They made their way through the service hatch and found the maintenance stations. They ran as fast as Sandy’s position would permit. She didn’t allow anyone else to carry Lily, but the ADAM in her body seemed to permit her to do it with ease when compared to the difficulties of her pregnancy.

“I see you…” a female splicer said as soon a horde came running.

“Shoot them, shoot them!” Claire said. “For Eddie!”

Sandy dug up Addie’s revolver and fired. One headshot, two headshots… and five more from fast-firing Sally.

“They might be carrying some pheromones on them, take this antidote,” Buck said.

He passed around the needles. They had to discard their helmets long ago as they became far less useful in the forgotten bottom of Rapture that was Pauper’s Drop, as well impairing their vision when attacked by the much more agile splicers that had been turning up. Carrying meathooks and crawling on the ceiling, other saner splicers called them ‘Spider Splicers’ and they were the bane of Rapture. Then, there were the Houdini Splicers that seemingly teleported all over the place in an attempt…

“Hello,” a splicer said as he held a knife to Claire’s throat.

… to sneak up on their prey.

“Let me go!” Claire said as she swung her wrench in his face before the latter disappeared again.

As he held his hand that started to glow uncontrollably, he hadn’t downed much ADAM for a long time, he thought about that useless Bright Bulb plasmid that attracted all the people’s attention in peace time and a certain death in this situation: “Come and get me!”

The splicer horde screamed as they flung themselves at him and the bane of his metal bat.

They got out of the tunnel, then they heard an anguished scream. They’d gotten Charlie. And there were still many of them alive, hungering for ADAM. And Lily.

“Ditch that girl, she’s attracting them,” Claire said as she closed the door by hitting the hinges and letting the door collapse on itself. The tiles of the Medical Pavilion cracked under it.

“We are not ditching anyone, she kept you alive!” Sandy said as she looked at Claire’s hand. Green and orange, red and blue, it was covered so many disfigurements that nobody could tell what plasmids she had taken.

Claire clenched the wrench lurker tonic in her bag she’d ‘found’ a few months ago.

“And now she’s gonna get us killed. If you want that to happen to you and your baby, be my guest, but I’m getting out of here,” Claire said.

“Waaaaoooooughrrrr,” it sounded. A Spider Splicer was coming.

Sandy and Claire broke off their discussion and the whole group picked up their tempo and ran up the flights of stairs, they were getting near the airlock. Then the Big Daddy dropped in and punched through Ernie, revving his drill as his intestines were cast against the wall. Ernie turned his grenade launcher around and shot it empty into the Big Daddy until it fell. Then it got back up and Ernie didn’t.

“Go,” Buck said as he heard the buzzing of security bots. “I’ll hold them off.”

“If we keep going like this there will be no-one left!” Sally said as she covered Buck with her crossbow’s bolts against the Big Daddy.

“Go!” Buck yelled as he unleashed an insect swarm in the Big Daddy’s vision and as it was distracted by the buzzing cloud, he shotgunned the bronze abomination clean in the face.

The others could only hear the firing of the security bot’s machine guns as they ran to the airlock and went through.

“I, I can’t stand it, they won’t stop and all because of your stupid urge to self-destruct, I…” Claire said as she took some needles from her bag and stuck them all at once into her forearm.

She stumbled, held all the pain deep inside of her as the transformation took place, as her face deformed in unimaginable shapes and she picked up the dried up rose from her dress, grinding it between her fingers.

“You were supposed to become a monster Eddie to protect me, so I wouldn’t lose my humanity. Why did you leave me, my lover!” Claire yelled as she yanked away the meat hooks that stuck through the airlock from the Spider Splicer that was trying to get through and she burned off the fingers that were connected to it before she jumped up against the wall, threw the rose petals between her hands in a strange cloud and ran off into the dark, screaming. She wouldn’t die, just yet. She would let others perish between her meathooks.

The whole thing didn’t faze Sandy, not one little bit. She had descended into madness herself, although her child and the memory of Darren had kept her strong. She’d kept Sally upright while she recovered from her stomach injury. After that, Sally kept up Sandy. Hormones and ADAM made an unpredictable mix.

“Let’s go to the Welcome Center, just through here,” Sally said as she supported Sandy and they went through the angled corridor with the glass windows. They went to the Kashmir Restaurant.

Sandy’s father had taken the family for their first underwater dinner, she would never forget, but her mind struggled to fill in more and more blanks. Was that food? She impulsively grabbed it, before vomiting very quickly. The bugs were crawling all over it, but she hadn’t noticed.

The intercom turned on.

“You have something of me, Miss Fawl,” Ryan said.

A lone splicer appeared and tossed a burning grenade that ignited before either Sandy or Sally could react. Slowly Sandy got up.

“Sally, Sally where are you?” Sandy said.

She felt dazed, but not quite dead. She walked around as she remembered only thing: the way to the elevator. After that, it was a cake walk. Even more when compared to all she had gone through.

“This one will be an angel soooooooooooooooooooooooooon…” someone said.

How much time was passing, was she moving at all? She didn’t feel the elevator moving, did she press the button? She put down her bag and saw a vent.

“Go in Lily,” she said as she picked up Lily and held her up to the hole.

“Sleepy time…” Lily said with her endearing yellow eyes before she yawned and disappeared into the darkness of the vents.

“Live, Lily… for all of us,” Sandy said as she stumbled further. She had to be near the elevator now, so where was it? She pushed a baby carriage out of the way as she would otherwise bump into it with her belly… she touched it. Why wasn’t she, he, her child, Darren’s child moving? She felt dead inside. She snapped, but she didn’t break out into fury. She wallowed for days on end, maybe weeks, months? How long had it been? Then, her child was back, with its smooth metallic surface, lying in the baby carriage she had picked out. Addie’s Revolver Waters, yes, that was its name. It was a he or a she? She would sing sweet songs to it and the others would sing along. Everybody now. And put on your party masks, she was sure she had some laying around somewhere…

'Hush now. Mommy’s gone… and daddy too. Wait. This is happening before, and not - Why are you here? W-why is it today and not then when you were warm and sweet? Why can’t mommy hold you to her breast and feel your teeth?'

Someone crept up from behind her.

“Baby and me, baby and me!” she said with a raspy voice. Her face had leaked into her mouth like the cold deep sea water, like a cancer that tried to drown her. Then she stumbled back as her head was bashed to bloody pulp.

“Plasmids changed everything. They destroyed our bodies, our minds. We couldn’t handle it. Best friends butchering one another, babies strangled in cribs. The whole city went to hell.”

End of Rapture, the house of broken mirrors.

Beginning of Bioshock.
(Chapter One: The depths of Men)
Chapter Two: A warm welcome… and a nice dinner at Kashmir

That was it. Any closing comments are much appreciated before I ask to move this fic to the completed section. So any fans?

Completed:

CHA-05: Teenage robot with organic skin starting war of sabotage and love.

So, I'll just post my closing comment to this story, which has been a challenge to complete as I was still training to be a better writer when I started it.

I hope for those that viewed and read it, it was fun and intriguing, even if it was just to pass the time.

I'll ask for this to be moved to the completed fanfiction subforum and thus it will be closed, as any comments wouldn't come anyway so it seems.

I'd be lying if I said I didn't have any more ideas for fanfics or that I couldn't use the practice or advice when using my hopefully improved writing style (which is hard to impose on old chapters or stories like the Game Pack without completely redoing them),
but perhaps I'm just stuck in the 'okay' section, not good enough to reply to and not bad enough to give pointers on and besides that, I have real life things to attend to (including irl proofreaders), so I'll stick to posting a new RP concept for now.

And yes, this is the exact same closing comment as my other fanfic I have concluded. Doesn't make it any less sincere

Completed:

CHA-05: Teenage robot with organic skin starting war of sabotage and love.